New Fíor Scéal season explores the topic of modern day slavery this November

During this season, Fíor Scéal casts a thought-provoking and fearless eye on issues which affect us environmentally, socially, politically and globally.  

This Thursday night we begin the first of four programmes exploring the topic of modern day slavery.

Thursday 5/11 – North Korea's Secret Slaves: Dollar Heroes

70,000 forced labourers worldwide are working to provide foreign currency for North Korea's regime - even in the European Union. 

This investigative documentary exclusively shows the inhumane conditions under which North Korean labour brigades are forced to live and work, and it sheds an important light on how this state-organized human trafficking helps to finance Kim Jong-un's nuclear program. 

Thursday 12/11 - Maid in Hell

Harassment, abuse, rape and 18-hour work days are a commonplace reality for domestic helpers who have travelled to the Middle East to find employment. Trapped in the Kafala system, their passports are confiscated and they are bound to their employer. Unable to flee, they risk harsh punishments or imprisonments if they try. 'Maid In Hell' gives unprecedented access to this frightening and brutal form of modern slavery. Following employment agents who vividly describe the trade, as well as maids who struggle to find a way home after harrowing, and sometimes, deadly experiences. 

Thursday 19/11 - Selling Children

In the world's largest democracy, India, millions of vulnerable children are bought and sold, given only what they need to survive another day. In this film we follow the lives of children who have been denied a childhood and an education to be sold to work in mica mines, to pick tea leaves at plantations, to work as domestic helpers and even sold as brides when they are just young girls. Their story, traces back to their families, exposes how perilous circumstances and a deep lack of knowledge about the meaning of slavery results in the selling of children.

Thursday 26/11 - I Was a Yazidi Slave

In June 2014 so-called Islamic State fighters occupied huge areas of Syria and Iraq, entirely overwhelming the Yazidi settlements grouped around Mount Sinjar. Yazidi men were killed, young women forced into slavery.  

This film tells the story of Shirin and Lewiza, two Yazidi women captured by IS, who escape to Germany thanks to the intervention of Dr Jan Kizilhan, a world-acknowledged expert on trauma. In all, he brought one thousand women and girls - all victims of IS sexual violence - from the refugee camps in Iraq to his clinic in the Black Forest for treatment. 

 

Fíor Scéal, every Thursday at 22.30 on TG4 and worldwide on TG4.ie