UNICEF Photos of the Year 2023 confronts childhood struggle

This winning picture by Polish photographer Patryk Jaracz shows five-year-old Alina practicing riding her bike, accompanied by her friends. It captures a moment of lightheartedness in a meadow in the northwest of Ukraine, which banishes the dark clouds of misery — for a while at least. The night before, a drone strike had set fire to an oil depot nearby, from which smoke still rises.

Oliver Weiken won the 2nd prize for his depiction of the boys who mine coal in Chinarak, in the mountains north of Aghanistan's capital Kabul. The 10-year-old boys earn only a few euros a day. Child labor in Afghanistan is not new. But since the Taliban's victory and failed harvests, young boys are increasingly working for a living.

"We see bravery. And misery. We see children as victims of structural violence, poverty and a lack of rights. We see distressing images that pull at our heartstrings,” UNICEF said about its 2023 winners. Pictured are UNICEF Germany's patron Elke Buedenbender (the wife of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier) and Polish photographer Patryk Jaracz who won the first prize.

Russian-born Natalya Saprunova won the third prize for her depiction of shifting childhoods among the indigenous Evenki people in the tundra and forests of Yakutia, in north eastern Siberia. Once living alone with their reindeer herds, these communities have seen gold and diamond miners, forest loggers and even missionaries arrive and transform their lives.

German photographer Michael Löwa recieved an Honorable Mention in 2023. Some 35,000 children and young people in Germany suffer from Type 1 diabetes and have to constantly monitor their blood sugar levels. Johannes is one of them. He's helped by his dog Enya, who can sniff out dangerous fluctuations in Johannes's blood sugar levels. She is trained to hit a bell with her paw to alert his parents.

Robin Hammond, a New Zealand-born photographer, has shot portraits of young people in five US states. Here 11-year-old Collin from Georgia talks about life, mental health and the things that worry him: "I used to feel safe at school, but from the news of school shootings happening nearby, like in nearby states, it's kind of scared me a lot. And school feels a little less safe than it used to be."

UK photographer Tommy Trenchard travelled to Sierra Leone to show how climate change impacts 8-year-old Ndole Kamara. The boy sits on the side of this family's fish-smoking hut as the rising tide laps against its walls on Nyangai Island. Each time the islanders lose their home to the sea, they build another further inland, only for the sea to catch up with them again.

In Purulia, West Bengal, Supratim Bhattacharjee captured a little girl collecting drinking water after digging into the river bed of the Kangsabati River. An acute water crisis here is pushing residents to extreme measures. Some have to trek several kilometres in search of water, while others resort to digging river beds as wells in some villages are either broken or produce dirty water.