Season 1
Women on the Frontline is a British documentary series produced by the BBC which investigates continued gender-based violence in seven countries with bad records of violence against women.
The series premiered worldwide on BBC World on Friday 18 April 2008. There are seven half-hour episodes in the series.
Women on the Frontline premiered in South Africa on DStv's BBC World channel on Friday 18 April 2008, at 21h30.
Repeats
Saturdays: 06h30
Mondays: 11h30
Synopsis
According to the UN, gender violence is on the rise. This series, presented by Annie Lennox, takes the front to the homes, villages, and cities of our world where a largely unreported war against females is being waged.
It threatens the lives of more young women than cancer, malaria or war. It affects one in three women worldwide. It leaves women mentally scarred for life. It is usually inflicted by a family member.
"It" is violence against women and girls. And according to the UN, this brutality – gender violence - is on the rise.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo rape is a weapon of war; in Turkey we find that women may be forced into suicides as a way of disguising honour killings; in Nepal we follow a 24-year-old mother who tracks down her sex trafficker; in Mauritania we ask if the movement to abandon the harsher aspects of Sharia law can succeed?
In Austria we find a new law showing violent men “the Red card” and from Colombia and Morocco come inspiring stories of women who have shown extraordinary courage in the face of violence.