The evening will also feature the Belgian première of the award-winning film “Children of War”, directed by Bryan Single, who will introduce the film together with Bianca Jagger. The documentary depicts the story of some of the 35,000 children who have been abducted and forced to serve in the rebel army during the civil war which has been raging in Uganda for the past 20 years. For three years, Bryan Single followed the emotional and spiritual journey of some of these children, as they return from captivity to begin new lives.

The screening of the film will be followed by a debate on how to make a difference, with a panel of prominent human rights advocates from all walks of life. Although they did not originally embark on that particular career, they are all by now human rights defenders by vocation and in practice. They are:

Els de Temmerman - a Belgian journalist and author, who as a correspondent in Africa for a number of Belgian and Dutch newspapers witnessed both the genocide in Rwanda and the war in Uganda. She decided to put her journalistic career on hold, to help former child soldiers and advocate for their rights. She is the founder of the NGO Child soldiers and her book “Aboke Girls – Children abducted in Northern Uganda” has been published in five languages.

Gabor Gombos - a Hungarian researcher, who experienced first-hand the degrading conditions of psychiatric wards before becoming an activist on behalf of users of mental health services. He has focused on ending practices that violate human rights, such as cage beds, and on highlighting the human potential of persons with mental health problems.

Albert K Barume - an African human rights lawyer, working on indigenous peoples' rights in Africa for over 15 years. They include dwellers of African tropical forests wrongly known as 'pygmies', the most ancient inhabitants of southern Africa, derogatively known as 'bushmen' and several other communities living in the margins of society in Africa. He is the author of several articles and books on indigenous peoples' rights.

Sri Kumar Vishwanathan – a high school teacher from India, who decided to move in with marginalized Roma after the 1997 floods in the Czech Republic, helping them to design and build a create a new neighbourhood called “Coexistence Village”, which to this day remains an unprecedented success story of integration. Since then, he has continued developing projects with and for Roma – against racial violence and discrimination and for better integration into society.

Julia Ehrt - a transgender activist who started her trans activism ten years ago with a group of young transgenders questioning the omnipresent bi-polar gender identity approach in society. Shocked by the ignorance trans people face in their everyday lives and by the lack of proper legislation, she moved on to political activism, with Transgender Europe. She works as a mathematician at the Humboldt University Berlin.

The Debate will be moderated by Reed Brody, the spokesperson of Human Rights Watch.

Free entrance: Free tickets are available at the doors (max 2 tickets per person) or on request to bozar.cinema02@bozar.be