'My tale begins right here, outside the town of Sokodé. A large and busy settlement five hours' drive north of Lomé ringed with smaller villages like handmaids to the greater town. All depend on the road for their existence'
Photograph: Joanne Harris/Nicolas Robert/Plan
Photograph: Joanne Harris/Nicolas Robert/Plan
'In every dilapidated shack, I found young women who had become little more than life support to their ovaries – reduced, by lack of contraception and lack of access to abortion, into breeding cows. Forced to drop out of school and unable to work, it's as though society has handed them an eviction notice'
Photograph: Michael Brian O'Doherty/Plan
Photograph: Michael Brian O'Doherty/Plan
'The old policeman stepped into the muddy rainwater streaming through the market. A smell of rotted durian fruit hung thickly in the air. He walked fast, with a sad joy, constantly colliding with busy shoppers, driven on by his eagerness to get home. He had to fix his rotten motorbike as soon as possible, and then drive to a village fifteen miles away before sunset'
Photograph: Chantara Soleil Mom/Sharon GouldS/Plan
Photograph: Chantara Soleil Mom/Sharon GouldS/Plan
'Ernestine was a tall, sinewy woman who walked miles each day carrying a beauty parlour on her head. This was a heavy wooden box, open at the front, packed with all the products a female might need to make herself desirable - face creams, hair accessories, soap, make-up, skin lighteners, conditioners, razors, hair removal foam, kirby grips and ornaments, perfumes and body lotions'
Photograph: Plan
Photograph: Plan
'On this transatlantic flight from Spain, bile is keening in my guts as I await my arrival in my homeland with a mix of excitement and dread. I am returning to the Dominican Republic after an absence of almost eight years, bearing distressing news of my younger sister, Renata, with whom I had a chance and disturbing encounter in Madrid'
Photograph: Plan
'The dream was so vivid it woke Bendu and for a few seconds, as she lay blinking on her grass mattress getting her bearings, strands of recall flickered at the edge of her mind. There are some dreams, she told herself, that are meant to be remembered and this was one of them'
Photograph: Tim Butcher
Photograph: Tim Butcher
