RugMark Launches Traveling Photography Exhibit

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin will be honored for his leadership in fighting exploitative child labor at a RugMark-hosted opening reception on February 3.

Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 1/22/2009

Human rights activist U. Roberto Romano reveals the beautiful faces behind the ugly practice of child labor in "Faces of Freedom," a new traveling photography exhibit sponsored by RugMark Foundation, the child-free-labor certifier.

The exhibit, consisting of 50 haunting black-and-white and color photographs taken by Romano during visits to South Asia from 1996 through 2007, depicts but a fraction of the estimated 300,00 children who continue to weave rugs in India, Nepal and Pakistan. "Many of the images here are grim reminders that children are still exploited in the netherworld of the global economy,” says Romano. “But most show us that there is always hope when they are given a chance, and this is how it should be.”



Running February 2-6 at the Russell Senate Rotunda in Washington, D.C., "Faces of Freedom" officially kicks off with a February 3 opening reception to honor Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, Senate co-chair of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and RugMark board member, for his leadership in fighting exploitative child labor.

The exhibit then moves on to the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis on March 3, and will continue to travel through 2009, the 10th anniversary of the International Labour Organization's passage of Convention 182 on Worst Forms of Child Labor. RugMark credits the convention, now signed by 173 countries, for helping to reduce the number of child laborers weaving rugs in South Asia by 700,000.



All images by U. Roberto Romano; courtesy of RugMark.