Abd Alkader Habak runs from the explosion  site, cradling a boy in one arm and gripping a camera in his free hand

No matter how ghastly the image, a child rape survivor was reduced to being a subject, a vacuous stereotype.

A fabrication by a U.K. photojournalist has led to reviews of his other work and a worldwide discussion about photojournalism ethics, including within the College Photographer of the Year competition at MU. 

Photographers are constantly squeezed to play the photo-game. We shouldn’t be surprised by Souvid Datta’s cheating, shortcuts or poor ethics.

Photojournalist Sandra Hoyn talking about her work in Bangladesh featuring children sold and forced to have sex

Last week, western media and what seemed like most of the internet was irresistibly drawn to the cataclysmic last photograph of a U.S. Army photographer, Hilda Clayton

Doomed children gasp their last breaths in the back of a truck filled with lifeless bodies that could have been their playmates hours ago. Volunteers sprint back and forth in an attempt to salvage the remaining lives. And a camera witnesses it all, capturing video that the public won’t see for more than a month.

Why are stories of vulnerable and suffering women and girls, often with pleading or blank expressions and seen in faraway lands, praised and rewarded by American and European grant makers, portfolio reviewers and editors?

Since his last interview with TIME, Datta has declined to comment further. “Following advice from my legal counsel, I am in the process of reviewing my archives,” he says

For every “obvious” scenario, there are dozens of ethically ambiguous situations. Do you preserve history at the expense of dignity? We will only gain clarity with an on-going discussion – not a punctuated dialogue that waits for egregious activity and a backlash of moral outrage.

Google “Souvid Datta” now and it won’t be his many awards, grants and contest-worthy stories that come up first. It’s going to be how he went down in flames. The first few pages of search results will include accusations that he’s a liar, a thief and untrustworthy. All things his name should be synonymous with, given his admitted actions.

He now confesses that there are other images from that project that were also altered using post-production techniques, and he says he also “appropriated photos” from colleagues like Daniele Volpe, Hazel Thompson and Raul Irani, and lied in order to conceal those actions

We’ve reached out to Datta for comment but have yet to hear back. It appears that his website, Facebook and Twitter were all taken down after our requests