The Gallery
All text and photographs copyright of Our Forgotten Children
Zambia
You can get arrested for taking pictures like this. This is what Costa found out in Zambia.
The boys in this photograph live in a sewer pipe under the Bridge, one of Lusaka's main intersections. By day, they scour the city for petrol and glue, collecting tiny amounts in plastic bottles. By night, they inhale the mixture to ward off hunger and fatigue.
When Costa scrambled down into the gutter to see how they actually lived, word got back to the police. "I was lying on my side in the crawl space under the road, taking pictures. Then I felt the presence of somebody looking at me from above."
He was taken to police headquarters and questioned, his cameras and film confiscated. "They were pissed off that I was bothering to photograph the kids. And they wanted to know how I communicated with them. They didn't even know that some of them spoke English."
Makaya, 13, is one of them. He told us how he had come to the Bridge for shelter when he was only five. "There were too many people at home", he says, with a shrug. Neither he nor any of the other kids have any relationship with their parents. "This is not a good life", he admits, "but where we came from was worse."
It wasn't always like this. Thanks to its vast resources of copper, Zambia was potentially one of Africa's richest countries. As copper prices declined, it started a slide into poverty that now makes it one of the world's poorest.
The spread of AIDS has caused half a million children to be orphaned. With free schooling available only until the age of seven, most Zambian children drop out at that age, leaving an ever-increasing number to aimlessly roam the streets.
In the nation's capital, homeless children can be found everywhere. Unable to find food or shelter, they cling to each other in groups. "We protect each other from other gangs," says Makaya. "And from grown-ups, like the police."
Costa got his film and cameras back and we left the station at least $500 poorer. Later that night, all was quiet under the Bridge. Only Paul, 11, was visible above ground. He seemed pleased to see us, but his eyes were glazed and his plastic bottle never far from his lips.
What kind of fate lies in store for him, and the countless others like him? One shudders to think. They've lost much more than their homes. They've lost their childhood. Now, with the lethal brew of glue and gasoline coiling through their brains, they're in the process of losing their minds.