Elderly Lives Frozen By Conflict: Ukraine’s War
Paula Bronstein
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Dates:
Entry Fee:
Free
Exhibition Event:
Official Opening
03/05/2020 3:00 pm
Paula Bronstein. The vulnerable, fragile, elderly population in Ukraine that are frozen by conflict; trapped in a war.
I examine under-reported human, economic and political issues to expose silent victims of conflict in a variety of war-torn countries. This series focuses on the vulnerable, fragile, elderly population in Ukraine that is frozen by conflict; trapped in a war, impoverished, and abandoned to survive in dilapidated homes.
Ukraine has the world’s highest proportion of elderly affected by war. A third of the country’s 3.4 million people that depend on humanitarian assistance are over 60 years old. In 2014, many young people left when violence broke out, while the elderly stayed behind barely surviving. Ukraine’s elderly are trapped in a war zone, listening to the occasional bursts of shelling near the line of contact separating the Ukrainian government forces and the Russia-backed rebel forces. For pensioners who have exhausted their resources, economic difficulties add to the stress of daily life.
Recent government measures led to hundreds of thousands of elderly Ukrainians losing their pensions, their only financial security. In pursuit of destroyed documents, and to collect their pension, they are forced to travel across the conflict-torn borders of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which is a difficult journey, waiting in long lines.
Paula Bronstein is an American photojournalist who has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout her long career that spans over three decades. Her expertise is documenting humanity and bringing awareness to issues throughout the world, focusing on many conflict regions. She is the author of the internationally acclaimed photo book “Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear.” Paula worked as a staff photographer for a variety of American newspapers for 15 years before moving to the Asian region in the late ’90s and working with Getty Images as senior staff photographer from 2002-2013. Currently working freelance, Paula’s work has been published globally and exhibited in numerous countries.
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