Warning CSA. Images of children that have been sexually abused have been altered by the author to protect their identities. Thank you @DecoloniseMSF for helping to organise this letter.
25 May 2022
To the International President and Board of MSF: Dr Christos Christou, Habiba Amin, Dr Carolina Batista, Sam Bumicho, Dr Betrand Draguez, Luis Encinas, Paula Gil, Yvan Legris, Dr Deane Marchbein, Dr Chibuzu Okonta, Reveka Papadopoulou, Parthesarathy Rajendran, Dr Mego Tarzian, Dr Marit Van Lenthe,
We believe that Médecins Sans Frontières has commissioned, published and profited from photos that endanger and exploit children.
The board has serious questions to answer, starting with how is it possible that a fully identifiable photograph of a 16 year old child, gang raped at gunpoint, seeking medical help from MSF, ends up published in marketing materials?
Apparently an orphan, so no parent to step in and protect her. Posed lying on her back, staring blankly up at the ceiling.
Or the photograph of a seventeen years old ‘school child’ that has ‘been raped not once but multiple times’. One of the myriad of risks these Congolese children face from being identified is clearly laid out in the accompanying text: ‘Many of these women are subjected to additional abuse because of the shame associated with their assault. Many are banished from their communities.’
The second question is what happens to these images of vulnerable children that are taken in the clinics you staff?
Type MSF into any of the world’s major stock libraries, and you will discover tens of thousands of images for sale (Getty Images and Alamy alone claim over 19000). Many are of children, taken in clinics, that can be bought, repurposed and attached to any cause by any organization.
In which of the following examples, in the board’s view, did the children’s parents give informed consent to that?
A 14 year old child, who turns up at an MSF clinic within hours of being allegedly gang raped, photographed whilst seeking treatment for internal injuries and HIV preventative drugs. For sale on a stock library. £375.
‘A boy cries while suffering from cholera at a MSF care center in Monrovia’ states the caption. Yours to buy as a fine art canvas wall print. £87 (our pixelation).
A terrified child, whose medical status is alluded to (£375). A naked child, body covered in scabs (£119 for a marketing package). Semi-conscious fly covered children in intensive care($499). Mothers in states of shock photographed as their children die ($499). Full frontal nudes of malnourished children at MSF feeding centers (£119 for a marketing package). A fully identifiable 18 year Liberian woman who has allegedly been raped by a police officer seeking urgent medical care (£375).
This is a tiny sample. Some examples are so disturbing we chose not to list them here.
MSF says it offers free medical care for all, but the price these children paid was for their trauma to be sold in stock libraries over which MSF has no control. In totality it represents the commodification of suffering on an industrial scale, almost always of vulnerable Black people.
MSF helped facilitate the creation of these images and must now take responsibility for their sale.
Final question.
Do MSF’s western staff apply a different set of ethical standards and legal protections to the patients they treat overseas than the patients they treat at home?
There are no comparable photos to those listed in this letter taken in the UK hospitals where the President of MSF’s board Dr Christou works. No child rape survivors, no dying children reduced to stock.
We look forward to receiving the board’s response to these questions.
An urgent independent inquiry into these issues is needed.
Yours Faithfully
Maximina Zulu, MSF Southern Africa board Vice President
Nina Berman, Documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and educator
Maaza Mengiste, Novelist, essayist, photographer
Nicholas Mirzoeff, Visual activist, Professor, New York University
Donna Ferrato, Photographer, activist
Monica Mukerjee, Working with survivors of violence course organizer, MSF Brussels
Ana Adlerstein, former MSF field communications manager South Sudan
Neelika Jayawardene, Associate Professor, Department of English and Creative Writing, SUNY-Oswego
Fanny Ferrato, PJG (Philip Jones Griffiths) Foundation
Smita Sharma, Photojournalist
Camille Melissa Waring, Feminist visual arts academic, survivor of childhood sexual violence and prostitution
Jim Chuchu, Visual artist and filmmaker
Lekgetho Makola, Chief Executive Officer at Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria
Nimmi Gowrinathan, Director of the Politics of Sexual Violence Initiative at City College New York
Kate Cronin-Furman, Associate Professor of Human Rights UCL
Clare Sambrook, Investigative journalist
Martha Tadesse, Humanitarian photographer and writer
Peter DiCampo, Cofounder The Everyday Projects
Roxani Krystalli, Associate Professor, School of International Relations, St Andrews
Steve Hunt, Former Detective & Victim Identification Officer 1992-2019
Nosmot Gbadamosi, Independent Journalist
Leslie Thomas, Filmmaker
Daniel Sohege, Director Stand For All
Andrew John Jackson, Photographer, writer, teacher
Shaun Connell, Photographer, founder TheBlkGaze
Laura Larmo, Photographer
Paul and Lynn Henni, Photographers, MSF donors
Jason Tanner, Human Rights Journalism
Chirag Wakaskar, Photographer, activist
Gifty Dzenyo – Photographer
Wasi Daniju, Photographer and psychotherapist
Richard Stupart, Assistant professor at the Department of Journalism University of Groningen
Andy Day, Journalist, photographer
Suchitra Vijayan, Author, Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India
Benjamin Chesterton, Filmmaker, activist, teacher, co-founder duckrabbit
Nana Kofi Acquah, Photographer, filmmaker, writer
Dr Ella Cockbain, UCL, Associate Professor specialising in human trafficking and exploitation, including child sexual exploitation
Arnab Majumdar, Writer, former eLearning Specialist at MSF’s Operational Centre Amsterdam
Natascia Silverio, Former MSF Anthropologist
Dr Hassaan Zahid, Former MSF project medical referent assistant
John Macpherson, Photographer, writer and (retired) Social Worker (Disability Services)
Dr James Smith, Former MSF Dr, advocacy manager and humanitarian affairs advisor
Paul Halliday, Photographer and urbanist
Spencer Botolo, MSF Southern Africa board member and International General Assembly representative
Lewis Bush, Course Leader, MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, University of the Arts London
Gabriele Casini, Former MSF comms staff
Sherizaan Minwalla, Founder of Taboo LLC and human rights lawyer
Virginie Kolengue Kaye Ange, Former MSF supply coordinator, Bangui
Cathy Otten, Journalist, author of ‘With Ash on Their Faces’ and Program Lead for the Journalism Initiative on Gender-Based Violence
Dr Patricia Hynes, Professor of Social Justice
femLENS, Supports female photographers from marginalised communities
Richard Bram, Photographer
Valérie Berta, Photographer, Activist, founder and director of the WE project
Dr Michael Marten, Photographer, scholar (empire and decolonisation)
Padma Priya, ex-deputy head of mission, MSF in India
Sian Addicott, Director at Ffotogallery
Alfie Goodrich, Photographer
Sharron Lovell, Course Leader of MA Visual Journalism & Storytelling, Bolton
Alex Buisse, Photographer
Kenneth M Sweeney, Managing Director of @EuropeanNK
Anna Kućma, Director, UPPA Uganda Press Photo Awards
Nantongo Stella Programme Coordinator FOTEA, UPPA Uganda Press Photo Awards
Clemente Bernad, Documentary photographer
Professor John Edwin Mason, University of Virginia
Hervé Bossy, Journalist
Hans Hochstöger, Photographer
Stella Kramer, Pulitzer Prize-winning photo editor and publisher of STELLAZINE
Ginnette Riquelme, Photographer
Kunal Chakraborty Photographer, Filmmaker, Activist Calcutta, India
Dr Rajalakshmi Nadadur Kannan, Assistant Director of Research Center for Gender in Global Context, Michigan State University
Melissa Lyttle, past president of the National Press Photographers Association (and visual journalist based in DC)
Bénédicte Desrus, Photographer
Robert Law, Company director, Producer
Michael Salter, Scientia Associate Professor of Criminology at the School of UNSW, expert in child sexual exploitation and gendered violence
Dianah Chiyangwa, Photojournalist and documentary photographer
Eva-Maria Kunz, Book Designer, Editor
Guillermo Arias, Photographer
Tolu Olasoji, Writer, journalist
Henry Iddon, Filmmaker, photographer
Katie Moore, Filmmaker
Barry Pitman, Photographer
Kerstin Hacker, Photographer and Course Leader BA(Hons) Photography, Cambridge School of Art, ARU
Andy Barnham, Photographer
Sandra Harper, Photographer
Tee Chandler, Photographer artist
Anna Sellen, Photographer
Sonya McGhee, Photographer
Hari Adivarekar, Photographer, journalist, activist
Nick Wilcox-Brown, Photographer
Jonathan Perugia, Photographer, educator
Talha Jalal, Former Humanitarian Affairs Officer with MSF
Dr Elizabeth Orcutt, Artist and lecturer
Martin Dust, Photographer
Graham Hopkinson, Photographer
Sian Bonnell, Artist, mentor & director of TRACE
dr. sava saheli singh, scholar and filmmaker
Cort Anderson, Photographer, Artist
Laura Laffler, Collections Amber Collective
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