(photo by Jacquelyn Martin) Children play under mosquito netting inside a dormitory of the Kabanga Protectorate Center, housed in a walled compound for the Kabanga Primary School, in Kabanga, Tanzania on Monday, Aug. 27, 2012. The dorms are overcrowded as more people with albinism have been sent to live at the center by the government for their own safety. Having albinism, a genetic condition characterized by a lack of pigment in the body, can be a death sentence in Tanzania. Since 2006 more than 100 people with albinism have been physically attacked in the East African nation, 71 of whom died. Attacks by witch doctors, who use albino body parts in potions said to bring riches, have led the government to place children and adults with albinism into centers for their own safety. Although physically safe they are often stranded in the centers, many over-crowded boarding schools, with little long-term plan for their futures.
(photo by Gabriela Bulisova) Lashawna Etheridge-Bey, a 39-year-old resident of Washington, DC, spent half of her life in prison for a double murder. She was paroled in December 2011. While visiting her mother's house, she finds a photograph of her self from before her incarceration. "I was one of the worst people you would probably ever meet," says Lashawna of her life when she was nineteen.
(photo by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) (L-R) Newly-adopted son Cardel, 6 smiles at his two adoptive parents, Kelly Vielmo (C) and Jack Montgomery (R) get married by Rev. John Beddingfield in Washington, DC on Thursday, July 26, 2012. The same sex couple legally adopted Cardel and his two sisters Ravyn, 2 and Raine, 3 earlier in the day. The children are all siblings from the same mother and have been living with Jack and Kelly for about a year now. They decided to do both events on the same day out of convenience for family members who came to town.
(photo by Melissa Golden) Samar Almadani of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia speaks with another Saudi National and recent masters degree recipient during the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia Cultural Mission's Graduation Ceremony at the Gaylord Hotel, National Harbor, MD. The graduation ceremony is part of the higher education program initiated in the wake of September 11th to improve relations between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia as well as train the nation's next generation of leaders. Despite exposure to Western mores, many of the graduates in attendance expressed a desire to move back to Saudi Arabia and maintain their traditional values.
(photo by Lauren Schneiderman) After months of unemployment from his job in the coal mines, in August 2012, John and Crystal Jarrell could no longer afford their home in Van, West Virginia. Because of this, they had to move in to John’s parents house, putting a total of seven people, and two different families, under one roof.
(photo by Lauren Pond) Vicie Haywood, mother of Pentecostal serpent-handling Pastor Mack Wolford, 44, strokes her ailing son’s feet after he suffers a rattlesnake bite during a worship service in Panther, W. Va., on May 27, 2012. In accordance with their religious beliefs, Mack and his family did not seek medical attention for the bite, and entrusted the pastor's recovery to God. He died about nine hours after being bitten. Haywood also lost her husband to a rattlesnake bite when Mack was a teenager.
(photo by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) Tabitha Rouzzo, 17, lays on her bed with not much to do after being grounded by her mother in New Castle, PA on April 21, 2012. The energetic life she leads is at school with her friends and staying busy. She participates in school plays, track and field, works part time and attends youth ministry and church. Being grounded by her mother, having her cell phone taken away for a month means boredom and proves to be a deflating but effective punishment. Rouzzo is maining good grades in hopes of a scholarship to boost her out of New Castle which is a shrinking, post-industrial town.
(photo by Allison Shelley) A group of women and girls chat around a fire as they prepare to sleep under a rock outcropping in observance of chaupadi in Kalekanda village, Achham, Nepal, December 18, 2012. The space, shared by all of the village women, provides no protection from the elements. Deep in the Himalayan foothills of western Nepal, an age-old Hindu practice called chaupadi still banishes menstruating women-- considered unclean-- from their homes during their periods. Sleeping in animal sheds, caves or even out in the open, rape and deaths due to exposure and animal attack are common.
(photo by Danita Delaney) Mrs. Delaney-Daniels’s daughter, Loretta Delaney-Mohamed, age 34, stood at her mother’s bedside warmly embracing her mother’s hand as she listened to the melodies of her mother's sweet deep breaths during her peaceful stay at the Hospice of Care Home in Washington, D.C.
(photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post) Burlesque's Last Night at the Red Palace… Before they close their doors permanently at the Red Palace in the trendy and alternative H Street North East section of Washington D.C., female burlesque performers dress for a New Year's Eve show Monday evening, December 31, 2012.
(photo by Andrea Bruce / NOOR Images) Urban poverty, inequality and social exclusion are a long-standing syndrome of Latin American urbanization. The continent of largely urban societies is essentially fractured, showing a basic duality of rich and poor, formal and informal, organized and disintegrated, ruled and unruled. In addition, a wider set of problems have been emerging over the past decades such as alarmingly low levels of social trust and the proliferation of violence and fear. Here, a teenage girl breast feeds her 10 day old baby. She conceived the baby after she was kidnapped and raped. Abortion is illegal in Guatemala.
(photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Maria Lopez-Garcia, 15, right, of Lanham, gets dressed in the bathroom of the Langley Park Community Center with her sister, Yesenia Lopez, 11, and mother, Leticia Garcia who wants her three U.S.-born children to have the careers she and her husband didn’t have, to get out of poverty and live a comfortable life. Lopez-Garcia is a legal resident, but her father has had immigration problems and was almost deported several years ago. Lopez-Garcia celebrated her fifteenth birthday with a group of other Latinas from from low-income immigrant families taking part in a self improvement program. It ended with a big quinceanera celebration marking the traditional end of childhood for these Hispanic girls.
(photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Kathy Peacock and her birthing team of midwives and family reach to support Miles Metcalf as he is born on March 25, 2013 in the bedroom of her Takoma Park home. This is the second natural childbirth Peacock has had.
(photo by Amanda Voisard) Aciro Harriett accompanied by her daughter, Acayo Given, 3, prepares the evening meal at her home in Palabek, Uganda near the South Sudan border in June of 2012. Harriett was abducted by the Lords Resistance Army at the age of 16. She was held in captivity for 13 years during which time she was given as a wife to one of the high commanders and bore several children. Despite many acts of reconciliation she continues to face stigmatization by members of her community.
(photo by Meghan Dhaliwal) July 8, 2012 - A young girl stands on the bow of a fishing boat docked on the shoreline of Cité Soleil at dawn in Haiti. Many children are expected to help family members fetch water, repair nets or sort through the fishing catch as the day begins.
(photo by Allison Shelley) A sixteen-year-old girl who preferred not to be named holds her three-month-old baby boy in her family's chaupadi shelter, a squat crawlspace under the home where the women of the household sleep during their periods, Achham, Nepal, December 9, 2012. She became pregnant when she was raped by a neighbor and family acquaintance while sleeping alone in the shelter. She is trying to track down the rapist, who fled the country, in order to give him the baby, who she cannot afford to care for.
(photo by Jacquelyn Martin). Having albinism can be a death sentence in Tanzania. Angel Salvatory, 17, who has skin cancer, with her half-brother Ezekiel, 1, and mother Bestida, who she had not seen in the four years she has lived away from home after her own father led a group of men to attack her, is seen at Kabanga Protectorate Center, in Kabanga, Tanzania on Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012. Angel passed away at the age of 18 from skin cancer in 2013. She was interested in becoming a journalist.
(photo by Jenna Isaacson Pfueller) Julia Bacher and Clifford Lubilz help their daughter Jailyn Lubilz, 7, try on shoes at the Goodwill store in Burlington, Vermont on April 20, 2013. A young family on a budget, they're conscious of where their money goes. "She just burns through shoes," Clifford said. "Every so often we do a complete overhaul. This is a good place to do it."
(photo by Amanda Voisard) Selcan Kesman holds her distraught son, surrounded by her children and several nieces and nephews. Kesman shares the the tiny squatter dwelling with 3 families, 18 people in total. Despite living in Istanbul for over ten years, the families say they are discriminated against for being Kurdish. Feeling alone and isolated, she and her two sister-in-laws often confine themselves to the small ramshackle community they live in. The women say they feel as though integration is much harder for them than their husbands. “We can’t even ask our neighbors to watch our kids,” said her sister in-law, Gulcan Kesman.