For 20 years, the photographer Donna Ferrato has been documenting domestic violence. On the scene during or shortly after beatings and abuse, her photographs have shown graphically the violence inflicted on victims.

"I think that a photograph of a face that's been through a lot, a face with emotion, tells more than pages of words," she says. "The photograph makes people identify with and often feel something for the person because they can see the person is real. We can never quite tell if the story is real when it's an essay without photographs. The photos give it a reality."

Ferrato is especially concerned with the damage done to children. Abused women, she says, can heal if they break away from their abusive husbands and boyfriends, "but the children I usually come in contact with, they are like time bombs."

Objections

Although Ferrato is careful to obtain permission from those she photographs and to talk to "everybody connected to the child," her work has been criticized as an invasion of privacy. The chief of pediatrics at a New York hospital has "told journalists that those who use real names and pictures of children should ‘fry in hell.'"

In response, Ferrato says that she is "perhaps one of those who will ‘fry in hell.'" She describes a story she told with her camera of a 9-year-old girl in South Africa who was raped by a neighbor and infected with syphilis. "I firmly believed people needed to see her face, to understand that this is a real child.

"I hope that children are not exploited by my work, but that through it they have a chance to show what they are going through. They have a right to be able to show that and to say, 'I hurt, I'm angry, this has happened to me. I need help.'

"I believe photographs can point to that rage far better than any words connected to any anonymous child."