Alessandro Fodella – Making Invisible Problems Better Known

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Alessandro Fodella – Making Invisible Problems Better Known

Fellow speaks to Salzburg Global about illegal labor migration in South East Asia

Alessandro Fodella attended Session 571 The Next Frontier: Transboundary Cooperation for Biodiversity and Peace

Alessandro Fodella has always been passionate about nature. The lawyer, who focuses on environmental issues and human rights, says, “When I decided to study it was clear to me that I wanted to do something that would help the common good.” Fodella, who also works as a professor of International Law at Università di Trento in Italy, uses images to raise awareness and attract audiences’ attention to complex topics. One such topic, which Fodella has looked at, is the situation of Cambodian migrants living in Thailand illegally. Fodella spoke about this topic with Salzburg Global while attending The Next Frontier: Transboundary Cooperation for Biodiversity and Peace.

During this session, Fodella shared some of the stories behind his powerful images. He says, “With my photos I am [able] to go straight to people’s heart. I don’t aim to appeal (to) their intellect; I just want to make them realize what is happening around the corner.” Fodella’s pictures, which do not show peoples’ faces in a bid to preserve anonymity, are not easy to digest.  Many of them show young women, making their living out of prostitution, who are frequently exploited and sexually abused. For many of these girls, this is the only path they can consider following for them and their families to continue living.

Illegal migration between Cambodia and Thailand is a widespread issue – and one not easy to tackle. The lack of decent employment opportunities in Cambodia, plus the challenges the country is still facing after the Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s, leads many Cambodians to cross the borders in search of a better future. Thailand is one of the chosen destinations for several reasons; the relative ease with which one can cross the border is one of them. However, once migrants manage to arrive in the country they are forced to survive under very tough and poor conditions. Moreover, despite being next to each other, the two countries have different cultures. This can make migrants feel isolated and unable to integrate into the new society.

While some women are forced into prostitution, a number of men are frequently employed in the fishing sector working in unsafe conditions. Fodella’s photos aim to portray these obstacles, and how hard it can be sometimes to live a “standard life.” The idea of carrying out this project came to him when he came across staff members working for an NGO during one of his travels.

“Thanks to them I could put faces to the problem I was observing. It was a very tough experience for me. I went back to my hotel room every night feeling upset and uncomfortable for being surrounded by these stories without doing nothing,” he explains.

Fodella was shocked by how normalized prostitution had become and how nobody seemed affected by it anymore. Fodella wanted to create awareness by making this problem visible so other people could be conscious about it as well. Fodella wanted to portray the other side of the issue. To do so, he went to Cambodia to describe how the situation was for immigrants who had decided to go back to their country of origin. There, he learnt many of the women decided to keep working in prostitution as it was the easiest way to feed their families who tended to fully depend on them to survive. He says, “It is extremely hard for them to reintegrate, they have to start again from scratch and they end up returning to prostitution.”

Fodella suggests illegal immigrants in Thailand are seen as “objects” and “ghosts” on the other side of the border.  He says, “Their illegal status does not allow them to ask for any sort of protection, they are left alone and unprotected.”

Tackling this issue will need transboundary cooperation between both Thailand and Cambodia – no one country can solve this problem alone.


Alessandro Fodella was a participant in the Salzburg Global session The Next Frontier: Transboundary Cooperation for Biodiversity and Peace, which is part of the multi-year Parks for the Planet Forum. This session is being hosted in partnership with IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), MAVA Foundation, Arcus Foundation, Aga Khan Foundation, German cooperation (Deutsche Zusammenarbeit), Huffington Foundation, Robert Bosch Stiftung, the Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Foundation, and others. More information on the session can be found here: http://www.salzburgglobal.org/?id=7583