The past is a foreign country

Youth is a short season. And for Imad, Maryska, Ibrahim, Raza, Dinesh, Sabo, Jacob and Benjamin it is certainly the case. They have been washed ashore, sent, escaped or chased away. Jacob, Raza and Dinesh fled the horrors of war in Sudan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Imad and Benjamin were spat out through the merciless streets of Ghana and Morocco. Maryska and Ibrahim ran for the wrath of their murderous fathers in Ukraine and Guinea and little Sabo got stuck in the net of his family of Syrian-Kurdish resistance fighters.

In the early nineties, the seven boys and one girl were born under a different heaven, but now they are our children. It could be the harvest of one day, of any day.
 After all, on average every three hours, a child without parents arrives in our country, a total of about 1,600 in the first six months of 2011.

 This is where their new life begins, but the start is messy, the die already cast. Rape, murder, war, betrayal, family violence, drugs and homelessness - none of the scourges that plague the human species have been spared. They made it off alive, but the memories that overshadow their days are greater than themselves.


Writer and journalist Catherine Vuylsteke followed the eight for one school year, from September 2010 to June 2011. The Nadaars and three guest photographers each portrayed one of the youngsters.