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When we are behind the lens.

Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, the sex workers' organisation in India, with the support of UNICEF, is running a project which teaches photography to the children of sex workers. Around 80 children are taught by two Kolkata based photographers Suvendu Chatterjee and Kushal Ray.

The children come from Kolkata's four red light areas, Sethbagan, Kalighat, Tollygunge and also from Titagarh, a sick industrial belt in the suburbs of Kolkata. Though many of these children go to the so-called formal schools, this education has little relevance to them. Photography has provided them a confidence which they will need in the very process of becoming a photographer. It is a long arduous journey. As their photographs show they have considerable family moorings. The love, bondage and affection their family photographs exude contradict society's perceptions of their lives. It is photography that has given them the strength to establish their rights and show their world in a new light.