Are Starving Photos Inappropriate?

After yesterday’s post regarding starvation deaths, a creepy feeling gripped my shoulder, and I decided to ask this question out loud. Maybe some of you will respond.

Pictures of people starving to death are not pleasant to look at, so why, other than to prove “I was there” would I publish them? They are images that I see regularly during this part of my travels, and, as this is a travel blog, they must be justified as part of the whole experience: the good, bad, sad, glad, and ugly, the roller coaster between emotional extremes (starving babies one day, laughs and leopards the next), it is all a cultural collage that I am trying to document and share. But isn’t that exploitive of these people’s pain? Will help come their way just because I’ve shown their living skeletons to the world? Raising awareness is important, but none of you need reminding that there is death and suffering in the world; you’ve got your daily paper for that. Then again, there are no starving tea or coffee workers in your daily paper, though there are plenty of them in the world; and what are you sipping from your mug while you read?