Before Their Time: The World of Child Labor
Compiled over 15 years, longtime activist Parker's stark photographs of underage laborers shine a necessary if disturbing light on the pathetic working conditions endured by those too young to defend themselves or to know better. By Parker's count, 320 million children under the age of 16 toil under hazardous conditions. This compilation of photos highlights six egregious industries that particularly exploit children, including farming, bricklaying and garbage picking. Intriguingly, for every horror shot Parker includes—such as the closeup of a Guatemalan boy's mutilated arms—he also includes tragicomic portraits of smiling circus performers, prostitutes and cotton pickers oblivious to any other life. Interspersed between the chapters are brief introductions (and a foreword by Sen. Tom Harkin) that point out the out-of-frame dangers his subjects face: asbestos clouding the air of miners, noxious gases polluting leather tanners or rabid dogs ready to devour stricken garbage pickers. Parker's grainy, black and white images allude to the realist photojournalism style of the 1930s, as if to demonstrate what little progress has been made in the past century.(Sept.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.