50 mins, 2007
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The plight of refugees and migrants is a major global problem. Two films provide dramatic case study material from the US and Bangladesh.
Film 1: BANGLADESH
In the early 1990s, members of the Rohingyas people fled persecution in Burma to seek a new life in neighbouring Bangladesh.
But instead they found government hostility and starvation. Isolated in displacement camps, they have now become a stateless, forgotten people.
"My people are rotting," despairs one refugee. The Bangladesh government treats them as illegal immigrants. The refugees claim the camp guards steal their food and force them into prostitution.
But unbelievably the Rohingyas people in the camps are the lucky ones. Thousands more live in slums along the riverside without even the basic protection provided by United Nations officials.
Bangladesh refuses to feed them and bans any outside agency from providing aid. "We survive by boiling leaves and eating them," says one woman. "No one cares about us."
Film 2: USA
America, it's claimed, is being invaded. Private citizen militias, which have sprung up in the wake of 9/11, say Iranians, Arabs and Chechens regularly infiltrate the country through the Mexican border and pose a danger to national security.
"Any terrorist can come in here, any time they want", says one militia member. Vigilantes patrol the border hunting down illegal migrants. And an iron wall has been erected on part of the border to keep the immigrants out.
But the truth is that the US economy relies on illegal workers. "We are the undesirables but they need us," says one immigrant.
Many illegal immigrants are led across the border by professional people smugglers known as "coyotes". Life is getting harder for the illegal workers. They're blamed for depressing wages, stealing American jobs and even spreading diseases.
But despite the wall and the vigilantes, the migrants keep on coming. According to one estimate, one in 20 US workers is now an illegal immigrant. One man says: "It's very tough for us. All of us are scared but we have to come here, because in Mexico, we can't make a living."
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