All images © Kevin Moloney


A small crowd gathers around a bateria drum corps as they practice a samba in the dirt streets of the Vigário Geral slum in Rio de Janeiro. The favela is one of Rio de Janeiro’s most violent, where drug gang members patrol dirt streets with automatic weapons, and corrupt police retaliate with indiscriminate shootings.



One of many young favelados who take part in the drug trade found in most Rio slums walks with an automatic rifle behind a practicing carnaval drum corps. The cocaine trade attracts many young men in the slums for the quick money it can produce.



Somália da Silva comforts daughter Jessica in the kitchen of the family home while Aline, right, waits for lunch. Pregnant with a first child at 15 — a son taken by his father shortly after birth — Somália had no idea modern birth control existed until pregnant with her seventh child. She tried birth control pills, but poor education led to improper use and an eighth child. The da Silvas planned for Somália to have her tubes tied following her latest pregnancy.



Somália settles into bed with six daughters while pregnant with a seventh child. With only one bed and bedroom, the girls must sleep on a pile of blankets on the floor. The da Silvas keep the whole family in the room furthest from the street during the night for fear of frequent stray bullets and police raids on the slum.



Somália da Silva walks two of her four school-age daughters, Lizandra, left, and Milani, to an underfunded public school each morning. Two of the girls attended classes in the morning and another two in the afternoon, requiring her to make four trips each day through the unsafe streets of the slum.


All images © Kevin Moloney

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