Then and now: Millennium Development Goals

Brothers Ratana, Sopeak and Sopoas would have rather gone to school than work at this rubbish dump. But their mother said there were no places available for them at the local charity school. The children worked through the night, slept, ate then went back to work."That's why only one of my eight children is in school. We have great difficulty feeding ourselves," San Sok Heng said.

Little has changed for most scavengers at the city dumps of Phnom Penh. Voern Deorn, 26, and her son Lai Horn, aged three, collect plastic for recycling. A 30 kilogram bag sells for about $10. In a good week she can collect and sell three full bags. To this day many scavengers still scoop up and eat discarded grains of rice or chewed-up watermelon rinds.

Abbas, then aged 15, worked in a goldmine for 13 hours a day, seven days a week. He had never been to school and could not read or write. He had been working in the mine since he was 12, with no safety ropes or supports in the narrow passages. After his boss died in the mine shaft, Abbas was afraid to go back. "But I had to earn money so I had no choice," Abbas said.

Danziger has revisited many of the people he photographed in 2005. "Very sadly… for those at the bottom of the scale, those really struggling to put even a single meal on the table at the end of the day, life hasn't much improved." Abbas still had to work in the goldmine. He had no other way to earn money for his small family, two wives, each of whom he married when they were only 13 years old.

In India, most transgender people, called hijras, had lived as outcasts and in poverty. Jeeva, aged 32, was angry that authorities mocked transsexuals like her. "Once a policeman called me 'it' as if I were an animal," she said. In her city about 2,000 third gender people worked in the sex industry. Most of them did not use protection and had never been tested for HIV/AIDS.

By 2010 Jeeva's state moved to grant transgender people the ID papers they needed to participate in society. In 2015 India's Supreme Court recognized transgender people as a legal third gender. Jeeva said times were now much better because there was less discrimination. "Yet there is still much work to be done."

Despite being born in a hidden ghetto, Franklin, aged seven, was happiest when reading, writing and doing his homework. In 2010 he was top of his class in primary school. Education itself was free in Honduras, but his family couldn't afford his daily bus fare to secondary school or the $25 for a uniform. He'd dreamed of becoming a banker, but Franklin had no choice, he had to stop going to school.

Franklin hugs his grandmother Maria. Jobless, he was recruited into a neighborhood gang. One night, police executed two of his friends. When he refused to deal drugs again, the gang leaders issued a death threat. Danziger often thinks about Franklin: "I hope that many of the people I photographed will find a way they can live where literally every morning they do not have to battle to find food."