Presentation
On 20 November 1959, the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child was unanimously adopted. More than 50 years later, children from around the world are exploited, forced to work, subjected to prostitution, used as child soldiers, and condemned to abject poverty.
Far from fighting to solve this problem and availing themsel-ves of their privileged positions to strive to help, some citizens from the countries that signed the Declaration behave in ways that should be condemned and prohibited. Many tourists sexually abuse children or facilitate their use as a lure in false orphanages. Despicably, they look the other way when children are at the helm of recreational boats, give them mas-sages or amuse them with circus acts. As we can see in this series, their perverse behaviour has led some places where children are forced to work in rubbish dumps to become tourist destinations.
“Dirty tourism” draws attention to these acts that violate all of the rights of childhood and denigrate children by making them mere recreational objects. These acts are prohibited and would be severely punished in these tourists’ countries of origin.
Biography
David Rengel Borreguero was born in Seville in 1978. He is a photographer and documentary maker. His career has involved film-making for more than 14 years for films, television, and international documentaries.
He has been acknowledged with awards including a gold medal at the International Exposition of Photographic Art in China, with the first prize for African Contemporary Photography (Popcap’13), with the second prize at the International Image Festival (FINI 2013), and as a finalist for the XVI Luis Valtueña International Humanitarian Photography Award, and the Fotografía Revela international award.
He has exhibited at the Vogele Kultur Centrum in Switzerland the Lagos Photo Festival in Nigeria, the Athens Photo Festival, in Greece, and the Delhi Photo Festival in India and is a co-founder of ANHUA, an ONG and group of photographers and other visual artists aimed at bringing to light forgotten conflicts and documenting both historical and contemporary social change unable to gain space in the mainstream media. He currently spends his time between Madrid and Seville.
