INTERNATIONAL: Photographing Violence Against Women, Even in Norway

There is a reason that we rarely see photo essays of serious social problems from Norway.

There are relatively few social problems.

Norway has a well-deserved reputation as one of the wealthiest, safest, best-educated and most democratic countries in the world.

But this is precisely why Walter Astrada chose Norway as the place to complete his magnum opus on violence against women.

He started the project in 2006 in Guatemala, where more than 600 women were murdered that year. He then documented sexual violence in Congo, where hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been brutally raped. In 2010, he focused on female infanticide and the low status of women in India.

But to fully demonstrate that violence against women crosses all economic, cultural, or geographic barriers, Mr. Astrada needed to go to a country with few other social ills.

“Everyone thinks that Norway is a paradise, and of course it is in many ways — if you compare it with India or Guatemala,” he said. “But you cannot say that a country has no human rights problems if women suffer from violence and you are not protecting them.”

In Norway, the violence against women does not often happen in public as it often does in Guatemala and Congo. It is hidden, and therefore more difficult for Mr. Astrada to document. Though the Norwegian government is often responsive to survivors, he found that women rarely talk about their stories.

Mr. Astrada's most recent images are quite different from his earlier ones. They are quieter and less dramatic. At the core of his Norway chapter are portraits of women who you probably could not tell were victims of violence. Except, possibly, from their gaze. The portraits are accompanied by moody images of the sites of violence.

He says this violence is not just a woman's issue, but an issue that affects all of society, particularly children. “If 50 percent of a country can be beaten, raped, killed or tortured, then it's not a free country no matter how developed it is.”

Mr. Astrada was raised in Buenos Aires by a single mother who gave birth to him when she was 18. She had to quit school and go to work.

“Women who get pregnant when they are young and unmarried get blamed, but not the guy who did it,” he said. “She gets the fault when society fails to protect her.”

In 1996, Mr. Astrada started his career as a staff photographer for the Argentinian newspaper La Nación. He has been a staff photographer for The Associated Press and a stringer for Agence France-Presse. He is now a freelancer based in Spain.

In 2008, and again in 2009, Mr. Astrada won first place for spot news stories in the World Press Photo contest. In 2006, he won first place in contemporary issues. Mr. Astrada was also named Photojournalist of the Year in the National Press Photographers Association's Best of Photo Journalism contest in 2009.

Most recently he won an Alfred I. Dupont award for a multimedia piece, on sex selective abortions in India, that was produced by Media Storm for the Alexia Foundation.

The Norway trip was was financed by a $20,000 Getty Images Grant that Mr. Astrada received last year at the Visa pour L'Image photo festival in Perpignan, France.

Now that he has finished his six-year project, he is ready to present the work in as many forms and as many forums as possible. He intends to publish a book including the photographs from Guatemala, Congo, India and Norway.

Rarely has a photographer tackled a social problem as eloquently, and as comprehensively, as Mr. Astrada. He hopes the photos produce concern, and action, from the audience.

At the very least, the images should cause shame.