JINHA

NEWS CENTER –Photographer Mariella Furrer has released a book documenting child sexual abuse in South Africa. Mariella, herself a child sexual abuse survivor, had to undergo psychological treatment while preparing the book.

Mariella Furrer, a photographer born in Lebanon and living in Africa, released the book "My Piece of Sky," the result of a 10-year project of documenting child sexual abuse in South Africa through photography, interviews and documents. Mariella wrote about the process of interviewing perpetrators and observing the lives of survivors for Al Jazeera recently.

The project started when Mariella was sent to take photographs for a news piece on infant sexual abuse in 2002. She started documenting the world of children who have survived sexual abuse in Johannesburg's Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children. Later, Mariella began to interview perpetrators.

"My work with perpetrators threw me into a very deep depression—but not for the reasons you might think," wrote Mariella. Mariella, disturbed by the sympathetic personalities of many perpetrators, was frequently unable to move for hours at a time from the psychological effects of the project. She underwent psychological treatment as a result of the difficulty of the project.

The book "My Piece of Sky" collects over 600 photographs, interviews and other documents gathered through work with survivors, families, police, lawyers, communities and perpetrators of child sexual abuse.

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