thephotosocietyのインスタグラム(thephotosociety) - 9月16日 10時31分

Photo: @rezaphotography |

Stolen childhood |
#Cambodia: on the road |
His rifle is heavy and cumbersome, but it reassures him.The weapon has become his accomplice, as well as his guardian. With it, he finds it easy to order drivers to pull over, and then threaten to do a routine check of their cars. He feels protected and invincible. Chang is 12 years old. He lives by the side of a road in Cambodia.

Although he is a street child, he serves as a soldier in an armed squadron. As part of his duties, he stops people to perform searches or to question them. Sometimes he kills, doing it without any qualms. “I was ten,” he told me. “My father was a soldier, and I was traveling with him and his unit, leading an army life along with him. But at that time I wasn’t a soldier yet. We were near the front, close to the zone controlled by the Khmer Rouge. One day, as I was walking behind him, I heard a very loud noise. The blast blew the ground into a thousand bits. When the smoke cleared, I saw my father. I sat down next to his body, which was torn up and stained from the earth. I stayed there for a very long time. I didn’t want to leave his side, so I just sat beside him without moving. I promised him I would avenge him. I became a soldier after that.” I took Chang to an orphanage for street children. I gave him a harmonica to replace the rifle he’d had to leave behind. Within hours, he was already playing melodies on it. Chang took a new lease on life, a life that had seemed buried forever. Nothing and nobody could stop the devastating madness of his self-imprisonment. Chang ran away from the orphanage, telling his roommates that he had to avenge his father. He took only the harmonica with him.

Published in "War + Peace" (National Geographic Publishing, 2007), "Reza, entre guerre et paix" (National Geographic Publishing, 2008), and "Derrière l'objectif" (Hoëbeke Publishing, 2010).
#child #childhood #war #weapon #blacknwhite #childsoldiers #uniform #militaryuniform #cambodianboy #stolenchildhood #soldier #photooftheday #photojournalism #reza #rezaphoto #rezadeghati #rezaphotography #rezaphotojournalist #webistan #رضادقتى # عكاس @thephotosociety

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