A social experiment set in Tbilisi, Georgia tested how adults would treat an abandoned child wearing nice clothing and one who’s not.
The video, posted by UNICEF, features six-year-old child actor Anano dressed in outfits that looked starkly different: a chic coat with leather boots, a dirty sweater, and a ragged hat.
While dressed in her first outfit, Anano was approached by several adults asking if she was alright. One even appeared to call authorities for help.
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When Anano was dressed as an impoverished child, she was ignored.
The producers tried the experiment again inside a busy restaurant, with even more extreme results.
In her clean getup, Anano was embraced, kissed and invited to sit with the restaurant patrons. In her dirty clothing, she was treated with suspicion, pushed away and even told to get out.
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The experiment had to be stopped when Anano became so upset that she began to cry.
“Because my face was covered in soot and my clothes were all dirty… This made me sad,” she said after the experiment had ended.
According to a recent UNICEF report, 69 million children under the age of five will die by 2030, mostly from preventable causes based on current trends.
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