Features

Sputnik Photos: At the Border

By Stefan Hartmann September 20, 2007

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© Rafal Milach 2006 - <a href=http://www.sputnikphotos.com" title="© Rafal Milach 2006 - http://www.sputnikphotos.com" src="/images_MT/sputnik_poland.gif" />In the form of a photographic essay, the group of photographers known as Sputnik Photos shows the situation of workers from eastern European states now working in the new EU countries. Since the EU’s eastward enlargement, these people are now employed illegally in Poland, Slovenia or Slovakia as their free access to the employment markets of the EU member states is generally blocked by individual countries’ provisions to protect their own workers’ jobs.


When we think of people who work in the "West", we tend to think of nationals from Poland, the Czech Republic or Hungary, but for people from Belarus, Ukraine or Georgia these countries themselves are in the West – and for others who come from Africa or Asia they are simply "Europe".

Leaving aside the illegality of the work they do, these immigrants are not very welcome in their host countries and are rejected as cheap competitors for the jobs available. The essay illustrates the precarious situation of human beings who in many cases live hidden from the authorities for three, five or ten years and are afraid of one thing in particular: being deported back to their home countries.

Sputnik Photos has eight photographers: Andrej Balco (Slovakia), Jan Brykczynski (Poland), Manca Juvan (Slovenia) Justyna Mielnikiewicz (Georgia), Rafal Milach (Poland), Domen Pal (Slovenia), Agnieszka Rayss (Poland) and Filip Singer (Czech Republic).

Web: www.sputnikphotos.com

 

Stefan Hartmann, VISUELL

 

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