Essay Sample on Documentary Photography: War, Struggles, & Silence in DRC's North Kivu

Introduction

The Documentary Photography in question is about the rural village Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in North Kivu, where there was a war tone in that mineral region. The photos depict the raved community by the battles and struggles of accessing the land and minerals. The images juxtapose the voices of various people affected by war stemming from women, girls, and men from DRC who were silenced by war coupled with corruption within their government. The project, therefore, presents photos that underscore the DRC players in the conflict, together with the victims of war, like women and girls who faced sexual violence and called for support from the international community.

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The photo-documentary underlies the struggles of women and girls who, owing to the ongoing war on resources, became victims of sexual violence and are now survivors who tell their stories, thereby informing the name of the project the truth revealed. The photos underlie the unstable and unsafe situation in the DRC, and spite of the surrendering of the M23, there still exist several armed groups who are still battling each other in DRC (Fretwell,2010). It is because of this that a vast majority of young survivors are portrayed in the photo documentary who are in dire need of basic needs annually, especially in the rural side of DRC. The survivors in the pictures represent aspects of desperation and require counseling, financial support, and services for getting post-trauma help and care. A vast majority of the war victims in the photo documentary are teenage girls who might have suffered trauma and sexual assault during the battles; hence they need not only financial support to cope with the post-war injuries but also psychological support.

From the photo documentary, it is a vivid indication that a vast majority of vulnerable groups during the DRC war were women and girls who were defenses during the war, and the warring groups may have taken advantage of their situations. The photos are a clear indication of how traumatized and depressed at their location. They are forced to accept their fate since they cannot change whatever happened to them but have to take and live with it. The faces on the photos show sad and humiliated faces who appear vulnerable and in need of canceling, failure to which some may succumb to depression.

In the photo documentary, some of the sexual violence survivors, especially teenage girls, have lost confidence in themselves and are reluctant to go back to their healthy lives. As if that is not enough, they are afraid of attending schools for fear of people finding out and looking down upon them. Some women in the photos even got pregnant during the war as they were rapped, they are forced to live with those children who are products of rape and have no obligation but to love them since the kids are innocent, albeit the kids remind them of their worst experiences. Most of the teenage girls and women who were victims of sexual violence are still traumatized, and from their faces in the photos, their lives have not gone back to normal, as some women are afraid of what their husbands would think of them. A vast majority of young girls seem to be embarrassed about what happened to them for fear of being judged. Some of the photos in the documentary depict young girls and women who have lost self-esteem, live in fear. They would be uncomfortable associating with their male counterparts for fear of the recurrence of sexual violence and are still tormented by their past predicaments

Conclusion

In a nutshell, the photo documentary is a clear indication of the victims in war, and it is prevalent in young girls and women who are ordinarily vulnerable during battles since they are the weaker gender are defenseless. Following their sad and traumatized situation, they need both financial and psychological support from the international community to cope with the post-war trauma.

Reference

Fretwell, S. (2010, December).The Truth Told Project: Untold Stories of People Bearing theBrunt of Conflict. Blue Earth. Retrieved from https://www.blueearth.org/projects/