"In all countries where you have a big HIV/AIDS epidemic, at first you don’t see any orphans at all, as they are absorbed by the traditional systems. And then all of a sudden you seem to reach some type of breaking point and you start finding these children in the streets, you start finding them working in difficult conditions, you start finding even child-headed households.”

Bjorn Ljungqvist, UNICEF, Ethiopie

My photographs offer a look at the daily lives of Ethiopian families where the first-born child has become head of the family following the premature deaths of their parents. This is a growing phenomenon across Ethiopia, due above all to the AIDS epidemic.

Annabel Werbrouck (34 ans) was born and lives in Belgium.
annabelwerbrouck@gmail.com