Pictures that did not speak words

“When you have a world class iconic photographer ready to work for you for free, who thinks about these things”, said the smug journalist about her choice of photographer in the project that documented abused migrant domestic workers from Indonesia, Philippines and Nepal. She thought what the women would feel was irrelevant because of who the photographer was. That one sentence encapsulates everything that is wrong about the self proclaimed “do good-ers” who think expressing pity towards the survivors of crime and violence makes them eligible to be patted on the back.

Karen Emmons, a journalist, secured funding from ILO to document abuses faced by migrant domestic workers. She engaged Steve McCurry to work with her in this project. At a function held in Bangkok, organized under auspices of ILO, to the heavily western crowd of perhaps Bangkok expat she recounted atrocities women faced as migrant domestic workers, expressing how upset those stories made her. She told us about counting more than 20 scars on the body of one women who said she did not remember what caused those scars. Of other women, she said, “they are scarred for life”. She told us story about another woman who was pregnant when she returned. She said her access to the women were the NGOs that provide services to the returnee migrants and that she met the women themselves couple of times.

I wondered what the women felt. Why did they agree to get themselves photographed? Did they get paid for it? Did they wanted to be photographs? Karen did point out that all of the women signed the release form. What did the women benefit out of this in real terms? What was the added value of these posed photographs of the women in their life, which the journalist say is worse than before their migration?

And most important, do the women see themselves as the victims the way they are portrayed in the narrative of the journalist and the photographer? They experienced what they experienced and survived, and are living their lives the best they could. What are their hopes? Do they dream? What do the women feel about being postered as victims? Do they think victims as the defining character of themselves? None of these perspectives were there in her narration or in any of the photos.

Then I returned to the photos once again. They look posed for an effect that the journalist and the photographer wanted. Nothing in those photographs says they were about the women – it was all about photographer. Did he ask her to hold her child in the certain way? Did he ask her to bring that sad expression in her face?

And did the women feel special about being photographed by a “world class iconic photographer”? Perhaps, if they could have asked them if they knew who was taking their pictures and if they feel special about it, she may have learnt something about them?

These women refused to give up, they survived and they will. It is not the pity they need, but the dignity they deserve. Representing women that have fought and survived and are still fighting to survive merely as victims is wrong.