24 March, 2014
Igor hands out chocolate to a friend on his ninth birthday.
Åsa Sjöström
Photojournalist Åsa Sjöström was born in 1976 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Her work is social documentary, with a focus on women and children. Her photographic work has received first ...
Igor whispers into his friend Renat’s ear, at a school in northern Moldova. It is Igor’s birthday, and his grandmother has given him chocolate to hand out to his classmates.
Moldova is Europe’s poorest country. In the past 10 years, one-third of the working population has gone abroad in search of better-paying jobs. Children often find themselves looked after by elderly relatives, or left in orphanage boarding schools. Igor has a twin brother. They do not know their father and their mother died soon after leaving to work in Russia, when they were two years old.
