CHILD FIGHTERS OF JAMESTOWN

Child Fighters of Bukom is a project made in Bukom, Accra, where fishing offers subsistence rather than mobility. For many families, boxing is the only viable route to economic change.

Children enter the sport early, inheriting risk and responsibility at a young age. The outcomes are uncertain, but the constraints are clear.

I have worked in Bukom over a number of years alongside Richard Commey, later IBF World Champion. For his world title fight in the US, these portraits of child fighters in the community were used to create the ringwear and robes worn on fight night, ensuring no child boxer was excluded or overlooked.

There are no photographs of Richard as a boy. This work exists so that absence is not repeated.