Human Rights

Featuring American journalist and NPR and PBS foreign correspondent, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, this classic 56-part series was originally produced to open people’s eyes to human rights issues around the world. Today, this hard-hitting series provides historical and cultural perspective while expanding understanding of these often-complex situations. 56-part series, 25-27 minutes each.

An uncompromising look at child exploitation, this ABC News program features investigative filmmakers Len Morris and Robin Romano, who have exposed child labor operations around the globe. A gravel quarry in India, a Kenyan coffee plantation, a fishing platform on the Sea of Sumatra, even farms in the United States—the program shows how extensively these and other locations depend on child workers. With commentary from children risking reprisals in order to be heard, and from U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, who has sponsored numerous bills to combat child labor practices, the program clearly links a painful global reality with the complacency of Western society. (22 minutes)
An ABC News Production.

With the Darfur Peace Agreement in shambles, this Wide Angle report portrays the desperation of daily life five years into the Darfur conflict, from the sprawling Abu Shouk refugee camp to volatile rebel-held areas of Sudan seldom reached by Western reporters. General Martin Luther Agwai, commander of the combined United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur, is featured as the cameras follow him into a hostile region on a mission to persuade reluctant rebel leaders to come to the negotiating table. An interview between Aaron Brown and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof concludes the program. Viewer discretion is advised. Original broadcast title: Heart of Darfur. (57 minutes)

China is booming economically. U.S. companies, including Motorola and Boeing, are employing thousands in new factories. However, Western economic investment has not translated into a Chinese acceptance of Western ideas concerning human rights—as evident in the Tiananmen Square massacre. This program discusses the progress that is being made. We meet a radio talk-show host who invites callers to grill government officials, and newspaper editors who sometimes run pieces critical of the government’s human rights record. And while China may have a ways to go in this respect, one Chinese official predicts, "Full bellies and controlled political evolution will keep China on course [toward expanding human rights]." Original BBC broadcast title: Shaking the World. (49 minutes)

Solving for X is a feature-length documentary about the quantitative approach to human rights data. The film documents the work of Dr. Patrick Ball, leader of the Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group. Based in Silicon Valley, Ball and his team travel the world helping human rights supporters apply sophisticated computer analysis to human rights events. Three examples of this quantitative approach are explored in the film. First, the massive migration of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo during the war in Yugoslavia is examined. Dr. Ball conducted statistical analyses of this event and presented his findings at the trial of Slobodan Milosovic at The Hague. Second, we look at how the statistical report produced for Guatemala’s UN Commission for Historical Clarification changed the public’s understanding of the military’s role in that country’s thirty-six year conflict. Previously the military was seen as protecting the country from communism; later it became understood the military had targeted indigenous Mayans for genocide. Finally, Ball and his team work with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Liberia to analyze and interpret victim and perpetrator narratives. Through a painstaking examination of thousands of statements, Ball and his team are able to answer the basic question surrounding the Liberian conflict: who did what to whom?

Women, liberalized by Islam in Sudan hold political office and are back in the mosques. Dr. Turabi says morality, not the legal system, dictates women's dress. He says that critics abuse human rights criteria to suppress Sudan.

The migration of inhabitants of southern hemisphere countries (commonly called "poor countries") toward the North ("rich countries) deprives these nations of their doctors and nurses. This one-way transfusion can be seen in movements from Malawi to South Africa and then on to Europe; leaving a vacuum in the poorest countries. In Mali, various peripheral economic systems enable certain doctors to stay in the country and treat their compatriots, helped by international funding- one surprising instance of globalization revealing a human face. (52 minutes)