Liton Masud Alam is a documentary photographer based in Dhaka Liton completed a graduation in photography and photojournalism from Pathshala- South Asian Institute of media academy & photography, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Liton’s prime interests are social issues and human rights documentaries. He believes that people can get help by photography and knowing what's happening around the world. His photographs where published in some local Newspapers, The Sunday Times U.K and Shots magazine U.K He won the first prize of BPS (Bangladesh photographic society) Photo contest-2005, SOTIRI international prize for young photographers – Finalist 2009, China international press photo award (CHIPP) 2009 in Daily life – Bronze, Ian parry finalist 2009, National geographic all roads Photography project nominee 2010, WINE photo award Special mention 2010, LUCEO images student project winner 2010, Photo Visura grant project Honorable mention 2010. His "Requiem For Freedom" Story was chosen and exposed in September 2012 in the World Event Young Artists Biennale (WEYA) in Nottingham in the United Kingdom. Liton Masud Alam has been a member of Asia Motion since 2010. http://www.lightstalkers.org/masud__alam_liton
For a human being, freedom is always a relative term. We all have the freedom to think as we please, but can we always express what we think? We are free to fly through air using planes and dive in the oceans using underwater equipment but we can never take off on our wings like birds or breath underwater like the fish. For the sex workers of Douladia Ghat, Rajbari, Bangladesh, freedom is a dichotomy. Their profession has freed the sex workers from the ordeals of poverty by demanding they give up freedom over their bodies. They are condemned to be free from average norms and restrictions because sex workers are not free to live in conventional society. This dichotomy pervades every corner of the lives of the sex workers: They feel independent because they are earning money. But they have to turn the money over to the madam or the ‘husband’. They feel happy because they have made new relationships, new sisters, and new families. But they are stuck inside their adopted community…..
Cambodian children continue to be some of the most deprived and abused offspring in the world. They’ve had no choice in being born into a country with some of the highest rates of child prostitution and domestic violence in the world. Without schooling and access to basic public services, these children have little hope of escaping a life of destitution. It is, therefore, inexcusable that any child should have to live this way in such a plentiful world. A Cambodian non-government organization, Assisting Cambodian Orphans and The disabled Organization (ACODO), is presently working with orphans, disabled people and indigent families by providing Life-and-Vocational Skills and Indigent Family Support. It has been working for the poor, street and garbage children (children who explore the garbage for spoiled food to eat), vagabonds and disabled people…
We know that tanners get their daily dose of poison from the chemicals they use, but so do we. For the sake of making animal-skin more tender, more supple, we are all being fed chemicals by the environment. For the sake of making thousand-dollar European leather bags for one percent of the world’s population, the health of millions of people are being damaged. Poisonous chemicals are released into the air we breathe, into the rivers that are supposed to nourish our bodies, our lands, our agriculture. The highest price is paid by the tannery workers. In exchange for a minimum wage that barely allows them to survive, they are investing their own skin, their health that no money can buy, and their souls. These photographs tell their story because they cannot tell it themselves. They do not have the time to spare from their relentless work. They do not even know that they have the right to tell it.