The Peacekeepers and the Women

A film by Karin Jurschick

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SYNOPSIS

Winner of the Arte-Documentary Award for Best German Documentary, this chilling investigation examines the booming sex-trafficking industry in Bosnia and Kosovo, and boldly explores the disturbing role of the UN peacekeeping forces and the local military in perpetuating this tragic situation.

In 1995, the UN set up a free trade zone in Bosnia, hoping to bring peace to the troubled region. Instead it lured the thriving business of human trade—where women from villages in Moldova, the Ukraine and Romania are sold by the hundreds into prostitution. In a shocking indictment, the film reveals that affluent peacekeeping forces have been some of the burgeoning industry’s most solvent customers, allowing the sex trade to get a foothold in the region and paving the way for its expansion. Jurschick confronts UN officials and aid workers, goes on a raid with international police, and reveals the tragic stories of the trafficked women themselves to unravel the many layers of this complicated crime scene.

PRESS

"In 'The Peacekeepers and the Women’, political criticism becomes movie-wise palpable."

Arte Documentary Award Jury

“Shines much needed light on the dark side of nation-building and peacekeeping. Few films expose the ugly and complicated underpinnings of forced prostitution as unflinchingly as The Peacekeepers and the Women…recommended viewing on a sorely under-reported topic.”

Educational Media Reviews Online

“A bold thought-provoking examination of an important issue.”

Thom Terwilliger Ed.D. National Defense University

“A chilling insight into human trafficking…”

Sheffield Int’l Documentary Festival

“An urgent call to demand accountability at all levels to prosecute those responsible and end human rights abuses against women.”

Taiana Bien-Aime Executive Director, Equality Now

“Allows students to discover for themselves the double-bind that women face around sex work and trafficking, and to reconsider their ideas about personal choice and ethics.”

Molly Dragiewicz Women & Cultural Studies, George Mason University

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

Arte-Documentary Award for Best German Documentary
Adolf Grimme Award (Highest Television Award in Germany)
Award of the Moldovan Women's League
Sheffield International Documentary Festival
Nyon Visions Du Réel
Prag One World Festival
München Dokfilmfest
European Documentary Film Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Karin Jurschick

Karin Jurschick was born in Essen and studied Theater, Film and Television at the University of Cologne. Co-founder of the international women’s film festival Feminale in Cologne, she also worked for five years as an editor for the culture department of the Stadtrevue Cologne monthly magazine. Also active as a writer for radio and television, her award-winning films include: IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN NICE AFTER THAT (2000), THE PEACEKEEPERS AND THE WOMEN (2003), AFTER THE MURDER OF THEO VAN GOGH (2005), NOT ANYMORE (2006), an episode of "24 Hours Berlin" (2008), CERTIFICATE IN GERMAN (2009), THE CLOUD, CHERNOBYL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES (2011), and ON THE RAIL OF EVIL (2012). (8/14)

Subject Areas

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo

Winner of the Sundance Special Jury Prize in Documentary and the inspiration for a 2008 U.N. Resolution classifying rape as a weapon of war, this extraordinary film, shot in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), shatters the silence that surrounds the use of sexual violence as a weapon of conflict. Many tens of thousands of women and girls have been systematically kidnapped, raped, mutilated and tortured by soldiers from both foreign militias and the Congolese army. A survivor of gang rape herself, Emmy Award®-winning filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson travels through the DRC to understand what is happening and why. Produced in association with HBO Documentary Films and the Fledgling Fund, this film features interviews with activists, peacekeepers, physicians, and even-chillingly-the indifferent rapists who are soldiers of the Congolese Army. Harrowing moments of the film come as dozens of survivors recount their stories with an honesty and immediacy that is pulverizing in its intimacy and detail, but this powerful film also provides inspiring examples of resiliency, resistance, courage and grace. **Emmy Award Nominee for Outstanding Informational Programming: Long Form and Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Writing**

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Fighting the Silence

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s seven year war was the deadliest ever recorded in Africa. During that time, more than 80,000 women and girls were raped. Only now that the country is formally at peace are the consequences of the brutality becoming truly visible. Rape is slowly seeping into everyday life. FIGHTING THE SILENCE tells the story of ordinary Congolese women and men that are struggling to change their society: one that prefers to blame victims rather than prosecute rapists. Rape survivors and their families speak out openly about the suffering they endured because their culture considers women second class citizens and rape a taboo. They give voice to thousands of other survivors and their families who have chosen to hide their grief and remain silent for fear of being rejected by their families and community. Girls and women survivors tell of the brutality they experienced. Married couples openly talk about the pain they endure. Husbands talk of the pressures that led them to abandon their wives and why they agreed to take them back. A father explains why he has given up on his daughter’s future and how he wishes he could afford to take her rapist to court. Soldiers and policemen share their (shocking) views about why rape continues to flourish despite the war having officially ended four years ago.

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The Price of Sex

An unprecedented and compelling inquiry, THE PRICE OF SEX sheds light on the underground criminal network of human trafficking and experiences of trafficked Eastern European women forced into prostitution abroad. Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova’s feature documentary caps years of painstaking, on-the-ground reporting that aired on Frontline (PBS) and 60 Minutes (CBS) and earned her an Emmy nomination, Magnum photo agency’s Inge Morath Award, and a Webby for Internet excellence. Filming undercover with extraordinary access, even posing as a prostitute to gather her material, Bulgarian-born Chakarova travels from impoverished rural areas in post-Communist Eastern Europe, including her grandmother’s village, to Turkey, Greece, and Dubai. This dangerous investigative journey brings Chakarova face to face with trafficked women willing to trust her and appear on film undisguised. Their harrowing first-person accounts, as well as interviews with traffickers, clients, and anti-trafficking activists, expose the root causes, complex connections, and stark significance of sexual slavery today.

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Dreamcatcher

“You got any dreams you wanna catch?” Sundance award winner DREAMCATCHER takes us into a hidden world of prostitution and sexual trafficking through the eyes of one of its survivors, Brenda Myers-Powell. A former teenage prostitute with a drug habit, Brenda defied the odds to become a powerful advocate for change in her community, and works to help women and young girls break the cycle of sexual abuse and exploitation. DREAMCATCHER lays bare the hidden violence that devastates the lives of these young women, their families and the communities where they live in Chicago and Brenda’s unflinching intervention that turns these desperate lives around. With unprecedented access, multi-award winning director, Kim Longinotto (SISTERS IN LAW, ROUGH AUNTIES, SALMA) paints a vivid portrait of a community struggling to come to terms with some of its most painful truths and of the extraordinary woman who uses her past to inspire others to survive. With warmth and humor, Brenda gives hope to those who have none in the four magic words she offers up to everyone she meets: “It’s not your fault.”

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