Hello everyone. I am Uğur Gallenkuş, an Istanbul-based digital artist. I create collages juxtaposing two images including the work of some of today’s most intrepid photojournalists.
By contrasting images of different realities, I aim to show a range of intensely relevant issues affecting today’s children: from war to poverty, hunger, child trafficking, child labor, child soldiers, immigration, healthcare, and education. Violation of basic children's rights compelled me to publish this book that shows two sides of humanity that we have collectively created.
One question we all at some point ask, especially when we understand what it means to be a parent, is this: What legacy are we leaving the children of the world?
The book takes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children, enforced since 1990, as its foundation, aiming through these 50 collages to convey the essential rights each child should have, regardless of their circumstances or geography. Each collage represents one of the U.N.-determined rights of children and is accompanied by statistics indicating the pressing realities putting children in danger worldwide.
With this book, I hope to inspire a shift in the consciousness of adults, inviting us all to leave our greed and egos behind and make the world a better place for today’s children.
This book is dedicated to all children in the world: poor or rich, in developed countries or undeveloped countries, educated or uneducated, hungry or obese, or dead or living.
This book is a CALL TO ACTION!
#1 Profession Before Education
This is Shaila, a 15-year-old sex worker. Due to her stepmother's torture, she ran away from home and tried to go to her aunt's in Dhaka, Bangladesh. "Somehow I managed to get a seat on a bus which was going to Dhaka. There was too much traffic, so my bus was stuck in one place for hours. It was getting darker and I did not know what to do. When I got off the bus, it was midnight, 12 am. I was so afraid that I asked every single female passenger to give me a shelter for one night. I was crying and did not know what to do. No one believed me. If on that day, someone would have given me a shelter for just one night, my life would not have fallen into hell," she said. During the journey, she was kidnapped by a group and she found herself in a brothel.
Editorial Photo: GMB Akash
73points
#2 Bathing At War, Bathing At Peace
Salem Saoody, 30, is bathing his daughter Layan (L) and his niece Shaymaa 5 (R) in the only remaining piece from their damaged house, which is the bathtub, after the Israeli airstrike. 2015, Gaza.
Editorial Photo: Wissam Nassar
65points
#3 I See You
A Rohingya refugee girl looks next to newly arrived refugees who fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in Ukhiya on September 6, 2017. With children making up around 60 percent of the Rohingya that have fled into Bangladesh, many below 18 years old arrived into the makeshift tents highly traumatized after seeing family members killed and homes set on fire.
Editorial Photo: K.M. Asad
65points
#4 Children Are Children First - Seesaw
A Syrian boy sits on a destroyed tank in the Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, on March 27, 2015.
Editorial Photo: Yasin Akgül
64points
#5 Tin Soldier
Newly released child soldiers wait in a line for their registration during the release ceremony in Yambio, South Sudan, on February 7, 2018. More than 300 child soldiers, including 87 girls, have been released in South Sudan's war-torn region of Yambio under a program to help reintegrate them into society, the UN said on Februar y 7, 2018.
Editorial Photo: Stefanie Glinski
62points
#6 School-Bound
A Syrian schoolgirl crossing through a damaged wall outside her school in the Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, on March 25, 2015. Islamic State (ISIS) fighters were driven out of Kobane on January 26 by Kurdish and allied forces.
Editorial Photo: Yasin Akgül
58points
#7 Lunch Break
Two child laborers eating their lunch during a break at the factory where they work. Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Editorial Photo: GMB Akash
55points
#8 Wounded Girl With A Pearl Earring
A wounded Syrian girl receives treatment at a makeshift hospital in Kafr Batna following bombardments on the Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus on February 21, 2018.
Editorial Photo: Ammar Suleiman
54points
#9 Earning Play
Children at a brick factory in Fatullah near Dakka in Bangladesh. For every thousand bricks they carry, they earn the equivalent of 0.9 USD.
Editorial Photo: GMB Akash
53points
#10 Peaceful Sleep
A father with his child in the intensive care unit of the district hospital in Mora, Far North Region, Cameroon. The diseases most prevalent among African children are malaria, diarrhea, and malnutrition. February 20, 2019.
Editorial Photo: Pierre-Yves Bernard/MSF
48points
#11 Children Are Children First - Swings
A Syrian boy plays on a swing in a destroyed building in the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, as Muslims celebrate the third day of the Eid al-Adha holiday on September 3, 2017.
Editorial Photo: Amer Almohibany
47points
#12 A Rohingya Refugee Mother And Child
A Rohingya refugee mother and child's exodus from Myanmar to Bangladesh. According to the UNHCR, more than 720,000 Rohingya refugees have fled from Myanmar to cross the border and reach Bangladesh.
Editorial Photo: K.M. Asad
45points
#13 Children Are Children First - Skiing
Children bear the brutal cost of endless war. As 10 children from the same family were walking to school last year, they came across an unexploded mortar bomb—a common sight in Afghanistan, where war still rages between the Taliban and US-backed national forces. Not realizing what it was or the dangers it posed, the curious kids picked up the device and took it to show to an aunt. And then it exploded. Three children and the older relative were killed, and the remaining seven lost at least one limb each.
Editorial Photo: Noorullah Shirzada
44points
#14 Red Lipstick, Ocean Eyes
She is Rosina. She is a 14-year-old sex worker in Bangladesh.
Editorial Photo: GMB Akash
44points
#15 Crossing The Red Sea
A Rohingya refugee woman holds her son, seen after arriving with a boat to the nearest beach to the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, Shah Porir Dip Island Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 14, 2017.
Editorial Photo: KM Asad
39points
#16 Best Friends
Noha Abu Mesleh, 5 years old, is seen inside of her home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.
Editorial Photo: Wissam Nassar
39points
#17 Not All Heroes Wear Medals
Syrian men carrying babies make their way through the rubble of destroyed buildings following a reported airstrike on the rebel-held Salihin neighborhood of the northern city of Aleppo on September 11, 2016.
Editorial Photo: Ameer Alhalbi
38points
#18 Waiting For A Chance
Palestinian children waiting to fill jerrycans and bottles with drinking water from public taps at the Dair Al Balah refugee camp in central Gaza Strip in 2014.
Editorial Photo: Wissam Nassar
36points
#19 Until Every Girl Goes To School
Pakistani girls attend a school attacked twice by the Taliban. Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, 2013.
Editorial Photo: Diego Ibarra Sanchez
35points
#20 Love And War
An orphaned boy walks past a wall with drawings depicting rocket-propelled grenade launchers in Bol, Chad, on October 13, 2018.
Editorial Photo: Marco Gualazzini
35points