Verónica Haro Abril

Between the city and the countryside, the subtle and modern forms of slavery unfold. A girl waits for the pick-up truck that will transport her to the city. Once there, amidst a never-ending row of walls and fences, she peeks into the entrance to a school. Lined up and in uniform, those girls are not the ones Carmen will join.

When the colourful ice-cream van rides through the deserted streets of the village, there are no children trailing behind it. In Plazuela, a peaceful hamlet lost in a mountainous region of Ecuador, only a handful of old ladies remain, who are all widows. In the gloom of their houses, photos of those who are gone hang on walls: husbands who have passed away a few years earlier, children gone to work in the big cities or abroad, and grandchildren who have grown up far away from them.