February 5th – 8th, 2009 Seattle, USA
More information: http://www.shrff.org/
March 26th - April 5th, 2009
Find out more on: http://www.nolahumanrights.org/
March 12th-22th, 2009 Montreal, Canada
More on: http://ffdpm.com/2009/eng/home/
Find out more on: http://www.hrw.org/iff/2007/traveling/
Director: Barbara Arventidis, Rageh Omaar, United Kingdom 2007, 90 min.
Twelve–year old Mawulehawe from Ghana was sold by a local fisherman for 40 dollars to the operators of a primitive ship on Lake Volta. When his parents see him off at the station they celebrate his passage to adulthood. Meanwhile, cousins Rahula (12) and Amita (7) have been sent by their own families in India to work in an illegal sweatshop. The family's condition is that the two keep going to school; in reality, however, they work up to 18 hours a day sewing Saris. When they are brought home by a government official none of the family welcomes their return. UNICEF estimates 8.4 million children are forced to work as slaves around the world. Some are the victims of mafia groups and sex traffickers, while others have become slaves due to appalling poverty and the hopeless situation of their society. Child labour, from our perspective unacceptable, is often unavoidable for economic reasons. BBC reporter Rageh Omaar, himself of Somali origin, tells the stories of several child slaves from developing countries in this stirring documentary.
Director: Zelimir Zilnik, Serbia 2004, 61 min.
The final preparations for the big change in Serbian neighborhood are on the way: in spring of 2004. Hungary will became a member of EU, Slovenia as well (being the first one among former Yugoslav republics).Border crossings on the Serbian north-Horgos, Djala and Kelebia-will become the gates of united Europe, likewise all the border crossing between Slovenia and Croatia.
Director: Zelimir Zilnik, Slovenia 2001, 80 min.
People of different nationalities from Central Europe attempting to reach the West by crossing the controls and "European" rules. Starting from reality, the director reconstructed some stories and chose the cast both among people who experienced them and fledgling actors. They reconstruct these stories, and perhaps fake them, through the answers they give to the (Hungarian, Slovenian, Italian and Croatian) custom officers and to the author's questions.
see: transmigration.org/homearchiv.html
Director: Christian Duguay, USA 2005, 180 min.
Hundreds of thousands of young women have vanished from their everyday lives-forced by violence into a hellish existence of brutality and prostitution. They're a profitable commodity in the multi-billion-dollar industry of modern slavery. The underworld calls them human traffic. When a sixteen-year-old girl from the Ukraine, a single mother from Russia, an orphaned seventeen-year-old girl from Romania, and a twelve-year-old American tourist become the victims of international sex slave traffickers, a specialized team of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) struggles to expose the worldwide network that has enslaved them.
Director: Minze Tummescheid, Germany 2004, 124 min., Multilingual with English subtitels
"Jarmark Europa" at Warsaw's Dziesieciolecia Stadium, is one of Eastern Europe's largest bazaars and a centre for small trade that doesn't appear on any tax declarations. The traders come from a variety of countries in the former Soviet Union. They transport their goods to Warsaw or other cities west of the ex- USSR in unmistakeable bags.
Director: Elena Karathanasi, United Kingdom 2004, 22 min.
Maryam enters the UK illegally and claims asylum. She seeks things that we take for granted, such as food, shelter and safety, basic needs and human right
Director: Elina Hirvonen, Finland 2007, 51 min.
This engaging Finnish picture brings together in three parts fragments of human stories linked to the extensive migration of Africans to Europe. In the first section Tomatoes the camera follows Bakary, an economic migrant from Mali; he lives virtually on the streets in Spain, where he works on a tomato farm. These shots are accompanied by the words of Bakary's parents who we meet alongside relatives in the third part of the film, when the film's makers deliver a message from their son. The middle story Fence focuses on a young Senegalese whose attempted crossing of the Moroccan–Spanish border ended in failure. His group of detainees were taken and left deep in the desert. Several did not survive to see civilisation again, while those who did are forced to hide from the Moroccan authorities and police. This melancholy film features moving shots over a series of personal testimonies; it captures the resignation which has followed hopeful departure and the acceptance of the tough reality today.
Director: Fernando León de Aranoa, Spain 2005, 113 min.
Caye and Zulema, two young prostitutes in Madrid, develop a friendship based on their desire for a better life. Initially they meet when Zulema, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, steals one of Caye's customers for a lower fee, but when she finds Zulema badly beaten in her apartment, they quickly learn to support each other. While Zulema is selling herself to support her young son back home, Caye hides her profession from her middle class family. Even in their grim circumstances, they sometimes pretend they are princesses to hold onto hope, even though they work in an industry where hope does not exist.
Director: Ursula Biemann, Switzerland 2006/2007, 50 min., in French with English subtitles
Five selected chapters of a video project on migration structures from West Africa to Europe via the Maghreb. In a non-linear narrative style the project shows not only the conditions of transport but also the infrastructure of security control, and the retention camps along the way. Interviews imply backgrounds of the emergence and development of these structures.
see: www.geobodies.org
Director: Marco Kreuzpainter, USA 2007, 119 min.
When 13-year-old Adriana is kidnapped by sex traffickers in Mexico City, her 17-year-old brother, Jorge, sets off on a desperate mission to save her. Adriana is trapped by an underground network of international thugs who earn millions exploiting their human cargo, and her only friend throughout the ordeal is Veronica, a young Polish woman captured by the same criminal gang. As Jorge dodges overwhelming obstacles to track the girl's abductors, he meets Ray, a Texas cop whose own loss of family leads him to become an ally. From the barrios of Mexico City and the treacherous Rio Grande border, to a secret Internet sex-slave auction and a tense confrontation at a stash house in suburban New Jersey, Ray and Jorge forge a close bond as they frantically try to catch up with Adriana's kidnappers before she is sold and disappears into a brutal underworld from which few victims ever return.
Director : Bruno Ulmer, France 2006, 90 min.
A haunting documentary that depicts the portrait of ten young immigrants, accompanied by Bruno Ulmer throughout several months in different European countries. Arriving from Romania, Morocco, Turkey, they were pushed by the hope for a better life. But in longed for Europe they find themselves struggling for bare survival, without documents and working permits, discovering soon that no place is left for illusions. While portraying the intimate, daily struggle to conserve their dignity in a merciless environment, the film reflects the bitter outgrowths of the Schengen agreement and the contradictions of wealthy Europe.
Bozanovic, V. R.: Impact of Environment to Migration, 2008
Cazenave, P. S.: The EU, Human Rights and a Neighbour called Moldova, 2009
Irvin, A.: Displacement in the Kurdish Regions, 2011
Kaya, A.: Age of Securitization, 2011
Kühlmann, L.: Unaccompanied Minors in Germany and Europe, 2010
Schwenken, H.: Irregular Migration: European Union Policies, 2008
Steinebach, A./Güneş, L.: Current EU law and the status of residence, 2010
Human Rights Conventions Overview
Human Rights Documents on Refugees and Migrants, 2010
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948
1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees
European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1950
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, 2000
Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, 2005
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination