In December 2009, Japanese photographer Shiho Fukada was an honorable mention winner in SDN's first Call for Entries on the global recession for her submission End of Labor Town: Dumping Ground of Old Men in Japan. In 2010, Fukada began work for the New York Times in Baghdad and other parts of Asia. When the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in March 2011, she flew to the stricken coastal cities to document the catastrophe unfolding in her home country. SDN is fortunate to be able to present her work on this important and very personal issue.

Photo by Shiho Fukada. Rescue workers remove bodies from a washed out motorway in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture.

On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake, measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, struck off the coast of Japan. It was followed by a devastating tsunami that swept over cities, farmland, and ports in the northern part of the country. It was the most powerful quake ever to hit the country. Along with the death toll which is expected to reach 20,000, more than 130,000 people lost their home. The swept-away coastal towns may never be rebuilt again because of the possibility of another tsunami in the future. To many of them, the memory of what was lost -- loved ones, community, and homes -- is too painful for survivors to come back, even if the towns are rebuilt. 

Photo by Carol Allen Storey. Etta is 11 years old and an orphan since she was five, when both her parents succumbed to the AIDS virus a few months apart.

In Tanzania, many primary school students are forced to wear red badges sewn on their uniform denoting their HIV positive status. The children's immense sense of isolation is unimaginable, déjà vu of Hitler isolating the Jews into ghettos and the enforcement by the 'political police' that they had to sew a yellow Star of David  onto their clothes. Human dignity was ignored then as it is today and the world stands by silently. This horrendous infringement of children's rights is a blight on society even if it is without malice.