These Photos of Children and Their Bedrooms Around The World Will Surely Move You

We take a lot of things for granted. We complain. We whine, especially as kids. We have not enough gadgets. We were not given enough time to play. We are being told to do chores. Our parents did not buy us that expensive toy we wanted for our birthday. We sometimes even wish we have a life much more different than the ones we have for our own, not really realizing that there are people who would give anything just to be in our position. Some people would die for what we have.

Inequality no doubt still exists and it will keep on existing because of selfishness and greed that people who belong to the less than 10% of the world’s wealthy population.

Kenyan-born, England-raised, Venice-based photographer James Mollison has traveled around the globe and was able to capture snapshots of children and the places they call and consider their bedrooms.

In his eye-opening series, Where Children Sleep, he let the photos speak volumes for themselves and make a point in showing a remarkable view on diversity of children in different social classes around the world.

The series exhibited portraits of children and the respective places they spend their nights on. It ranged from high-class bedrooms to outdoor scenes that will leave people in shock.

Alex, 9, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Alex is unable to go to school and spends his days begging on the streets. He sleeps on any form of bed he can sleep in at night like a sofa, an empty bench or a cold pavement.

Delanie, 9, New Jersey, USA

Delanie lives with her parents, younger brother and sister in a large house in New Jersey where they each have their own bedroom.

Joey, 11, Kentucky, USA

Joy lives with his parents and older sister He regularly accompanies his father on hunts and also owns two shotguns and a crossbow and made his first kill—a deer—at the age of seven.

Dong, 9, Yunnan, China

Dong shares a room with his parents, sister and grandfather living off of the ample land they own where they grow rice and sugar cane.

Rhiannon, 14, Darvel, Scotland

Rhiannon lives with her parents and brother in a terraced house in an area plagued with heroin addiction and gang violence where they have become used to abusive behavior from people in the neighborhood. Sporting a mohawk like her parents’ ever since she was six, Rhiannon and her family and friends are part of a punk subculture and have formed a community of support where they all look out for each other.

Indira, 7, Kathmandu, Nepal

Indira works at a local granite quarry since she was 3. She also attends school and shares a mattress with her siblings. The house that she, her parents, brother and sister lives in has one room, one bed and one mattress.

Erlen, 14, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Erlen, who is pregnant for the third time since she was 12, sleeps on the bed for her mother has swapped places with her due to her being in the late stage of pregnancy. She usually sleeps on the floor of their small shack. Her first two babies were stillborn.

Douha, 10, Hebron, West Bank, Israel

Douha lives with her parents and 11 siblings in a Palestinian refugee camp. She shares a room with all her 5 sisters. Her brother Mohammed killed himself and 23 civilians in a suicide-bomb attack against the Israelis in 1996. Immediately after the bombing, the family home—including all their possessions—was destroyed by the Israeli military.

Anonymous, 9, Ivory Coast, West Africa

A 9 year-old orphan and refugee from war in Liberia who goes to school in Ivory Coast for ex-child soldiers and lives in a concrete shack with some of his classmates.

Maria, 12, Mexico City, Mexico

Maria lives with her parents and older sister. Their home has three stories and is set around a courtyard, behind security gates. She her own private doorbell outside her room. The family has taken security very seriously ever since one of her cousins was kidnapped by a gang.

Samantha, 9, Long Island New York

Samantha lives with her parents, and her guinea pig and fish, in a detached house.She has achieved a black belt in karate and has been world champion three times. Her bedroom is full of trophies she has won in competitions since she was 3.

Ahkohxet, 8, Amazonia, Brazil

Nantio, 15, Lisamis, Kenya

Nantio lives with her two brothers and two sisters in a tent-like dome made from cattle hide and plastic. She went to the village school for a few years but decided not to continue and is hoping a ‘moran’ (warrior) will select her for marriage.

Li, 10, Beijing, China

Li is a perfectionist and lives with her parents in an apartment block. She spends up to three hours every night working on her homework, “completing it to the highest standard.”

Lewis, 10, Yorkshire, England

Lewis lives with his parents and sister. He has been given an ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order). This means he is banned from going out at night, and must not possess drugs, alcohol, knives, or even a screwdriver. Lewis has Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder and has also been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Anonymous, 4, Rome, Italy

His parents clean windscreens at traffic lights for they have no identification papers. After begging for money in the day, they spend their nights on a mattress in a field on the outskirts of Rome.

Alyssa, 8, Harlan County, USA

Alyssa’s mother works at McDonald’s and her father works at Walmart. All their earnings are spent for their only daughter.They wish to buy a trailer once they could afford it to be able to move out of their small, shabby house that is falling apart.

Risa, 15, Kyoto, Japan

Risa is a “maiko”, an apprentice geisha, living with 13 other women in a tea house.

Kaya, 4, Tokyo, Japan

Ryuta 10, Tokyo, Japan

Bikram, 9, Melamchi, Nepal

Mollison said he aims for his work to make people reflect on the existing inequality ,and make us realize just how lucky most of us in the developed world are.

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