The Neglected
Years back I saw pictures from orphanages in Eastern Europe for the first time. The photos of these children from the early 90s affected me; their eyes, the bars of their beds and the many crew-cut heads. The Neglected from 2016 explores the emotional life hiding behind the walls of an old institution for disabled boys in the town Orhei in Europe’s poorest country, Moldova.
The 200 boys and men who live in the institution are all physically or mentally disabled. They are being cared for by an understaffed but hard-working crew of female social workers. Poverty is the primary factor for their parents feeling forced to hand over their boys to the orphanage. Left in the hands of the system the one thing the boys have in common is the lack of care and attention from a family – affection that is crucial to their development.
In order to protect the boys, institutional policy requires their names to remain anonymous.