10 Videos That Will Change The Way You Think About Human Rights
Burma, Sex Trade, AIDS, Illegal immigration, Africa - you name it. Feed your mind with facts and events that are challenging the world today. Here's a selection of shows that will fuel your thoughts and prompt you into questioning the rights and wrongs of hot issues surrounding human rights.
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A Few Small Steps
From Europe to Africa, Asia and the Americas, this film commissioned by Amnesty International looks at the huge impact that individuals turned Human Rights Defenders are having on their communities
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Behind the Labels
Lured by false promises and driven by desperation, thousands of Chinese and Filipina women pay high fees for jobs in garment factories on the Pacific island of Saipan- which despite being a U.S. territory is exempt from federal minimum wage and certain immigration laws. The clothing they sew, bearing the "Made in the USA" label, is shipped duty- and quota-free to the U.S. for sale of The Gap, J.Crew, Polo, and other retailers. \n\n Powerful hidden-camera footage, along with the garment workers' personal stories, offers a rare and unforgettable glimpse into indentured labor and the workings of the global sweatshop-where fourteen-hour shifts, payless paydays, and lock-downs are routine. Behind the Labels follows the issues from the factory floor ot the streets, where protesters worldwide wage an ongoing battle against corporate globalization.
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Living Proof: The Right to live in the Community
In Croatia, one in three people with moderate or severe intellectual disabilities live in institutions, segregated and isolated from the rest of society. Regardless of how well-equipped or staffed an institution is, it is still impossible for residents to realize their fundamental human rights and make decisions about their lives. Contrary to prevailing stereotypes and deeply-ingrained stigma, people with intellectual disabilities have the right and the ability to live as independently as possible and to be included in the community. \n\n Living Proof explores, demystifies, and offers an answer to the question of what deinstitutionalization looks like. By describing the daily experiences and presenting the opinions of people with intellectual disabilities, this film demonstrates the importance of providing community-based programs and achieving change in the social welfare system and in society as a whole. "Everyone should leave the institutions and be in apartments the way I am.... they would be better off, like me. They would have their own lives," says Ivka Krzelj, one of the people interviewed in this video. "Beyond that, it is up to you all to decide..."
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Rights on The Line: Vigilantes at the Border
Rights on the Line: Vigilantes at the Border exposes the ugly anti-immigrant politics that lurk behind the Minuteman Project - and shows the continuum between official border militarization and vigilante action. This video was shot by human rights activists and residents of border communities. It tells the story of border tensions from the point of view of those affected and reveals the underlying motivations of the vigilantes through interviews and disturbing footage of their nighttime patrols. For more than a decade, the southern border of the U.S. has resembled a war zone. Aggressive, military-style actions by the Border Patrol have made human rights abuses everyday events in border communities. \n\n Alongside this official militarization, armed vigilante groups have harassed border crossers and communities, but their numbers were relatively limited until recently. In April 2005, a new group called the "Minuteman Project" became a national media darling when several hundred recruits gathered in Arizona to patrol the border. Only months later, they are expanding their activities into California, Texas and several other states throughout the country.
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Shoot on Sight: The Ongoing Military Junta Offensive Against Civilians In Eastern Burma
In eastern Burma, a 45-year catastrophe has reached one of its worst moments, as the country's military junta escalates its attacks against the area's ethnic minorities. The government's efforts to assert control over ethnic border areas have emptied over 3,000 villages in a decade, an average of almost one village each day over the past ten years. \n\n \n\n The forces of Burma's military junta, the State Peace & Development Council (SPDC), are mortaring villages, looting and burning homes to the ground, and destroying crops in an effort to obliterate the livelihoods of rural communities. Burmese soldiers are ordered to shoot civilians on sight.
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Between Two Fires: Torture and Displacement in Northern Uganda
Between Two Fires is set in the context of two decades of armed conflice between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government in Northern Uganda, which has displaced nearly 2 million civilians from their homes to so called "protected camps." These internally displaced people (IDPs) face heightened insecurity, appalling living conditions, and lack the very basic means of subsistence. \n\n While the LRA has commiteed war crimes against the displaced population, including the abduction of some 20,000 children; the Ugandan Army (UPDF) which was mobilized to protect civilians has also committed human rights violations including arbitrary detention, torture and rape. \n\n Through the personal stories of IDP torture survivors, Between Two Fires advocates for official acknowledgement of abuses committeed by the UPDF, redress for torture survivors, and the strengthening of national legislation against torture.
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Bought and Sold: An Investigative Documentary About the International Trade in Women
Based on a two-year undercover investigation, Bought & Sold documents the illegal trafficking in women for forced prostitution out of Russia and the Former Soviet Union and into Europe, Asia and the United States. Global Survival Network staff went undercover in meetings with the Russian mafia and in brothels around the world to get an insider's perspective on how the international trade in women works. This groundbreaking documentary helped to catalyze legislative reform on trafficking worldwide, as well as new financial resources to address the problem.
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The Crying Sun: The Impact of War in the Mountains of Chechnya
The Crying Sun tells the story of people from the Chechen mountainous village of Zumsoy and their struggle to preserve cultural identity and traditions in the context of military raids and enforced disappearances by the federal army, attacks by guerilla fighters, and subsequent displacement. By helping to articulate the voices of Zumsoy villagers in the public and policy spheres, the video calls on local and federal authorities to end impunity for human rights violations and to restore policies for the return of mountain villagers to their ancestral homes. In the international advocacy fora, the video will help bring visibility to calls for justice in Chechnya.
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Staying Alive: An MTV and CNN News Special
Staying Alive: An MTV and CNN News Special has been produced for World AIDS Day 2004 and will be broadcast on both channels to a potential worldwide audience of over one billion people. In a unique creative approach, local MTV channels and CNN bureaus around the world worked together to produce news segments focusing on how HIV/AIDS affects young people in each region. Segments feature local CNN news reporters or MTV VJs in Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Tanzania, Thailand, the UK and the US. The special programme deals with many different issues related to HIV/AIDS, including access to treatment, condom usage, discrimination and rising infection rates, among others. By covering such a wide variety of topics, the show offers viewers the chance to see how the disease touches all people regardless of age, ethnicity, country or socio-economic background.
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Awaiting Tomorrow
Awaiting Tomorrow/Attendre Demain features young women and men living iwth HIV/AIDS in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the on-going conflict has claimed some four million lives. Through their personal stories, the film explores how the effects of HIV/AIDS on their lives are compounded by the conflict and insecurity of the region. Facing stigma in their families, lacking adequate nutrition and access to health care, these young persons bravely confront the disease and "await tomorrow." They advocate for national and international policy to provide critical assistance to those living with HIV/AIDS and for outreach on testing and prevention. \n\n Awaiting Tomorrow is an urgent call to action by people living with HIV/AIDS in war-torn DRC to confront the disease that is ravaging communities throughout Africa.
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