9 Serious Issues To Give You Some Perspective

Next time you find yourself complaining about something, consider how lucky you really are. For moving stories like these and more, tune in to the premiere of VICE this Friday, April 5th on HBO.

1. Political assassinations

Pat Roque / AP

In the Philippines 2010 election year, over 100 people were killed due to political violence. VICE follows this terrifying cycle of violence as politicians, businessmen, church groups, and everyday citizens are stockpiling weapons to take the law into their own hands.

2. Contaminated water

STRINGER/ZIMBABWE / Reuters

30,000 deaths occur every week from unsafe water an unhygienic living conditions; and 90 percent of those deaths are children. Here, a resident of Mabvuku fetches water from unprotected sources in Harare.

3. Human trafficking

MANAN VATSYAYANA / Getty Images

According to recent crime data, 14 children go missing in New Delhi every day, at least six of whom are victims of human trafficking. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says around 1.2 million children are victims of child trafficking across the world every year.

4. Child soldiers

GEORGES GOBET / Getty Images

Here, a child soldier points his gun at a photographer in Liberia. The use of children for the military is a worldwide issue. VICE covers the story from Afghanistan where Taliban leaders are manipulating children and teenagers into carrying out their suicide bombings.

5. Severe drought

LUNAE PARRACHO / Reuters

Brazil's northeast is suffering its worst drought in five decades. Lack of rain has hurt corn and cotton crops, left cattle and goats to starve in dry pastures, and affected 30 percent of sugar cane production in the region responsible for 10 percent of Brazil's cane output.

6. Electronic waste

STRINGER SHANGHAI / Reuters

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), e-waste is the fastest growing commodity in the waste stream. Guiyu, China may be the largest electronic waste site on earth, with 80 percent of it coming from overseas.

7. Education inequality

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Pakistani school children gather under a poster of injured classmate Malala Yousafzai who the Taliban attempted to assassinate for her outspoken insistence on girls' education. She has since returned to school and is now the youngest nominee of a Nobel Peace Prize.

8. Hunger in Mauritania

SUSANA VERA / Reuters

In this African country, half of the population lives below the poverty line and faces chronic food shortages due to lack of rain.

9. Poverty in India

DANISH SIDDIQUI / Reuters

Mumbai is the center of India’s struggle for twenty-first century economic ascendance. In a place where more than half its people live in slums sprawled in the shadow of billion-dollar, single-family skyscrapers, VICE looks in on just how surreal this collision of caste and future can be.