The Shocking Story of a 9-year-old

On my way down to the Allen Lambert Galleria in BCE Place, I started having second thoughts about going down to the financial district at 4:30pm. I knew the rush was about to begin, and rush hour on Bay St. is one thing that I normally try to avoid. Surprisingly, when I got to the World Press photo exhibit on the street level, there weren't that many people around. I started at the sports section and worked my way around. I have to admit, the photo I found the most visually pleasing was the one of David Beckham by Swiss photographers Marthias Braschler and Monika Fischer and Grazia Neri for L'Equipe/Guardian Weekend/Sports Illustrated/Stern. That, however was not the photo I was most moved by. In the next section down, there was a photo of a young black girl sitting on a dirt ground, surrounded by leaves and sticks with a women standing on either side of her. The young girl's name is Esther Yandakwa. She is 9 years old (although her scarred face and sad, tired eyes make her look more than double that age), is living in central Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. She is homeless, is a sex worker and in the photo she's smoking a cigarette.
The photo was taken by Per Anders Pettersson of Sweden for Getty Images for Stern. It won third prize in the Contemporary Issues Singles section.
As I stood at this photo, business people rushed around me, running in their hard soled shoes and stilettos so they could make the next subway or GO Train. One woman stood next to me and looked at it as well. I could tell by the look on her face that she was just as disgusted about this poor girl's situation as I was. Like me she looked at the photo, looked at the caption, looked back and the photo and was shocked by what she saw. I think that the photo succeeded, and won over the judges because of its shock factor. As I mentioned earlier, the girl in the photo has an aged face and looks as if she is just a small 25-year-old. I think once the picture is explained, that is where the real emotion comes from.
The caption reads "Esther Yandakwa, 9 smokes a cigarette while her friends help her with her hair, in central Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Esther is homeless and a sex worker. Tens of thousands of child refugees, war orphans, and children abandoned by their families, live on the streets in Kinshasa and other urban areas around the country." I looked up the photo online and found it at http://awards.gettyimages.com/awards.cfm?display=contests&contestID=48&workID=190.
There, it explained that Esther not only smokes cigarettes, she also smokes Marijuana, drinks whisky and takes Valium on occasion. It says that she lives outside, by a polluted river with four other fourteen-year-old friends. If I was moved from just seeing the photo, I'm even more shocked after reading a more detailed account of what this young girl has been through. The photo provided is also copied from
http://awards.gettyimages.com/awards.cfm?display=contests&contestID=48&workID=190