The Untouchables - Erik Ravelo

Whilst scrolling through the usual rubbish on my Facebook newsfeed, I stumbled across the following series of photoghraphs. The new series, produced by Cuban artist Erik Ravelo titled, 'Los Innocentes' (The Untouchables) are photographs of children crucified upon their supposed oppressors; each for a different reason and giving a clear message, seeking to reaffirm the rights of children to be protectwd and report abuse suffered by them.

Here are the pictures:

The first images refers to paedophilia in the Vatican.

The second: Child sexual abuse in tourism in Thailand

Third: The war in Syria

Fourth: refers to the trafficking of organs on the black market, where most of the victims are children from poor countries.

Fifth: Refers to free weapons in the US

Finally, the sixth image refers to obesity, blaming the big fast food companies.

The 7th was not on the list, but reflects war a nuclear disaster

What followed was a varying degree of comments from messages of congratulations to statements about foreign governments and immorality. Right or wrong, there was one comment as I scrolled that really hit me. As I'd got involved with reading the debate about the treatment of children in other countries, ripping foreign religions and traditions apart, I too had become a victim of precisely the thing Erik tried to capture in these photographs.

The comment said:

"The point of this project (done by a Cuban, so i don't get why people are attacking Saudis) was to draw focus and attention to the world's children. Instead, people here are making political statements, sticking up their right to own guns, pointing fingers at other cultures, and crapping on other religions. This is lunacy and only goes to prove the point of the project; how quickly we forget about our children."

An inspiring project, that not only gets us to think about the issues addressed within the photographs, but also about the blind eye we are so quick to turn to the suffering of our children.

Visit Erik's website for more about his work: http://erikravelo.info/los-intocables/