Krista Guenin, a wedding photographer based in Boston is on a mission to end the sex slave industry in Nepal and India.
I recently chatted with her about Untouchable: Children of God, a documentary project she is looking to complete by the end of December of this year.
Thousands of Nepali minors are forced to sleep with more than fifty men per day; they are locked into rooms or cages where they are beaten, starved, drugged, burned and raped by their captors and countless men who use and abuse them.
What will strike you the most about Krista is her commitment and conviction to help these girls out. To her, and this struck me most profoundly, it simply makes sense to use her skills as a photographer – what she refers to as a “gift from God” – to better people's lives.
It's not an easy commitment to make. She could have just as comfortably decided to simply photograph weddings in New England and been quite content. But she chose to step out of her comfort zone a number of times, to connect with these girls from India and Nepal and to tell their stories so that we may see them as human beings.
What will end the sex slave industry in Nepal and India? Conventional wisdom points to first changing a mindset among men. And this documentary, Untouchable: Children of God, aims to do just that.
Whether you are a woman or a man, I urge you to support this project. Krista and her colleagues are about half way there right now. Help them reach their goal to raise $50,000 so that they can finish this film and screen it in Nepal, India and more than likely distribute it worldwide.
To learn more about this project, please visit Untouchable: Children of God. If you have questions for Krista, please step up and ask them below. She has promised to come back and respond to you.
We all have a responsibility to do something. Every day that we delay another girl dies. The situation is urgent, and this film spotlights ordinary people compelled to take extraordinary risks for the cause of freedom.
Also, are you pursuing a personal photography project like Krista? Please feel free to tell us about it in the comments section below or email me directly.