Struggle To Survive: The Lives of Four Girls Over Ten Years | Real Stories

[Music] um [Music] foreign [Music] m there have been complications with dukashiri's birth and it's taking longer than expected [Music] it's midnight and the health center has to close for security reasons two hours after giving birth dukushri walks back home the day after things are placid and life just goes on dukkha shri now has the girl she's so longed for she calls her a laishrie [Music] yes assam in northern india has been going through a bloody internal conflict for the last 10 years with tribal wars and a disdainful government that neglects its citizens we have recorded our livestream's birth to document the life of a newborn in a displaced family [Music] our plan is to film the first few years of her life that's why we go back to india one year after her birth but the meeting is not what we had imagined [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] died of malaria in her mother's arms in a train wagon she was heading to the nearest health center eight hours away she's one of six million under fives dying every year in the world due to preventable causes [Music] ten years ago we went to four continents to film the birth of four girls they all had one thing in common they had inherited a situation of extreme poverty passed on through generations we saw them being born and we followed them for the first few months of their lives unfortunately the indian girl alai shri died now we will return 10 years later to meet them again and find out whether they achieved a better life happy or not come on [Music] we meet esther secret's mum a year earlier in monrovia she's 19 and about to give birth esther has suffered the war in all its rawness has never known any better a brutal war that has lasted 14 years and has left the country depleted her family like thousands of others fleeing the war zones pile up in the capital her daughter's birth is imminent and we have been waiting all night at the hospital run by medsan son frontier one of the few operating ones in the country but esther hasn't shown up and we have decided to go to her house [Music] [Music] foreign secret was born at midnight and esther didn't want to go into the streets violence is deeply ingrained in society and women are the most fragile sixty percent of liberian women have been victims of sexual violence [Music] the city is full of ex-combatants without jobs and it's really dangerous the government without any structure is incapable of managing the situation um [Music] secret is one and the family lives a peaceful life at the granny's house in the countryside where it's easier to survive but this first year hasn't been easy esther and secret have been abused now one boy tell me instead when you see esther essa draw by the boyfriend leaving esther in the rubber bush like how come i hustle for money i'll go for it and bring your own inside with me and i know what a boy [Music] [Music] be but things seem to start looking brighter and they might finally be able to face the future with optimism [Music] [Laughter] ten years have gone by and we're back to find secret we soon realized the country has changed a lot paved roads where there used to be tracks new buildings and businesses are opening up around the city ten years on liberia is a very different country the wall marks have slowly disappeared but it's still common enough to see groups of ex-child soldiers who haven't found their families and live on the streets my genitals are all you see doing these things we are frustrated we don't have hope so whenever we take in this drugs it can't show up they make us to forget about our our problem be very very bad but no power and no money ain't no to advance myself bouncing off an economic model which relies on the private sector a new upper class has emerged still a small minority we will soon find out whether secret situation has also improved [Music] wow [Music] okay this budding economic progress hasn't reached secrets family their situation is still very precarious even worse in these 10 years the family has increased secret now has four little siblings the last two are twins esther her mother has had six children from five different fathers all of them except the last one have left her [Music] wow secret is now the eldest at home and looks after the little ones who's here but the economic resources haven't increased at the same pace as the family they barely have enough to add to their diet of a daily rice dish well i'll meet you right i wonder [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] be esther lives with her latest partner but secret has decided to stay with her granny as it's the only place where she's found some stability [Applause] [Applause] that [Music] your father is the head of the family thank you i see his school is almost empty this morning is yesterday the students were put out because they did not pay school fees and there are many one up now are not registered secret has been a good student her grades didn't go below a or b most likely can be here but beside me but things have changed in this neighborhood there's no public school there is only a private school with a 70 euro yearly fee which the family can't afford secret has left school i will be tattooed ten years earlier president ellen johnson sirleaf made a declaration of intent which for secret and many other liberian children has not yet been fulfilled today women are increasingly competing at all levels in society to do so they must be prepared so our challenge is to make sure all of our young people particularly our girls they get into school they get educated and they go as far as they can in their professional life so without a chance to go to school secrets likelihood to break the poverty circle she's inherited from her parents will be small we return to the isolated south of bolivia one of the poorest countries in south america noelia has just turned ten she was born at the same time as secret in liberia they both belonged to extremely poor families noelia just like secret is a very good student but unlike secret she can still go to school [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] in 2005 we meet the mendozas a family of quechuan farmers hilaria is about to give birth to her seventh child cyprian her husband has two tools to survive an axe and a bible hilaria reaches the inn just in time for the birth they have two boys and three girls and they lost a boy who was only five now they'd like another boy to help cyprian with the farm work yes [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] it's a girl she won't be called moises [Music] [Applause] [Music] two days after the birth the baby gets home a humble wooden hut on hired land the family is poor they live on less than one euro a day like 25 of bolivians later on we will find out that cyprian drinks gets violent and fights with everybody the situation in the hut is not as happy as it seems [Music] happy on appearance that's how we leave the mendozas the year we meet them just before we leave they tell us the girl's name noelia her future is very uncertain and so is that of bolivia as evo morales has just been elected as president an indigenous man rises to power for the first time with a goal to nationalize hydrocarbons [Music] with an essentially extractive economy the liberian model is opposite to that of evo morales trying to attract foreign investment companies such as firestone achieved so much power that it was said they were responsible for government presidents getting in or out now liberia has found a new commercial partner a very powerful ally building roads faster than anyone and who only wants to talk business and we are now going to meet the international community to talk about the post ebola economic recovery and who's the first to launch it china an ally that has also found a non-spoilt market to sell its cheap consumer goods when i go to washington after having received this i can go to washington and say we have started our reconstruction because china our best friend was right there this morning to send me all and to send me for all the things that i need to start a recovery program [Applause] the big chinese business giants were quick to accept that invitation the company china union won the concession for 25 years to exploit the iron mines in county bong but the game has taken an unexpected turn nobody had predicted such drastic price reductions for iron in the global market the machines have been sitting still for six months liberians are discovering that their economy doesn't depend on them anymore but on the omnipresent global markets the great promises of millionaire investments could end up in nothing if multinationals think their profits might be in jeopardy now the chinese are not as welcome [Music] [Music] yes liberia has got big international investments but so far secrets life hasn't changed her family has been left outside any opportunity to prosper and nobody has helped them they're known as uncoupled wagons we say farewell without knowing when we'll see secret again but certain that without the necessary tools it won't be easy for her to break the circle of poverty in which she lives bolivia 10 years later noelia's family lives in a different place in rio blanco on the land where cyprian the father started to work after the girl was born it was a forest on a mountainside cyprian got a loan to buy this piece of land a place nobody wanted far from everything he dreamt of making his home there it seemed like an impossible mission the forest has disappeared now there is fertile land and cyprian is a very changed man and seems particularly happy [Music] foreign it seems like cyprian and hilaria's situation has changed radically but when we returned a year after the birth the six children still lived in the old hut they were still poor and cyprian hadn't given up drinking [Music] and noelia the queen of the house wasn't walking yet [Music] so [Music] oh [Music] [Music] it's friday noelia and her sister agar leni come back from school to spend the weekend at their parents house [Music] [Music] is a boy to help him with his farm work but with noelia he got a great surprise our is foreign [Music] [Music] is [Music] every monday at 4 a.m cyprian wakes the family to get the girls back to school where they'll spend the week religion helped cyprian quit alcohol he's been practicing it even more devotedly since ah foreign foreign [Music] so [Music] during all these years evo morales government has been branded as populist but the truth is that he's helped people like the mendozas mosquito hilaria has always worried about her sons leading a bad life like their father when they were little but juan and seperimo have always helped cyprian in the farm at the start they planted peanuts and corn are men and they still come and help their parents despite the harshness they experienced as kids with cyprian drinking and beating them foreign has been lucky the government has built boarding facilities beside the school so that kids that come from the mountains can attend class every day illiteracy in bolivia has decreased dramatically in the last few years noelia and her brothers are the first generation in their family to go to school but the welfare achieved by the mendozas could be under threat they live on soil that's very rich in gas and petrol despite it being a protected area the mechanisms of the system have been set in motion explorations have started in the forest we find the sites that have been prepared to carry out tests and determine where the deposits are that's the step prior to exploitation so far the mendozas haven't been affected by the petrol issue for noelia life is much better than when she was born the country has experienced some prosperity due to the good price of raw materials poverty has been reduced thanks to everyone's efforts and help from the government noelia and her family have prospered now they have hope a lot more than some years ago when we first met them ten years ago we chose sweden as a paradigm of welfare state a country with a model which back then was opposite to those of bolivia and liberia but in sweden it wasn't all perfect the gomda the invisibles were refugees who'd received a deportation order they lived in fear hidden in some kind of limbo micheline is congolese she fled the war and poverty in her native country her petition for asylum has been turned down michelin has an imminent deportation order a congolese musician who came to sweden as a refugee 20 years ago has offered to let her stay in his house just now that she's due oh oh michelin has given birth unexpectedly and without help the umbilical cord is still connecting mother and baby [Music] hmm okay [Music] [Music] the girl will be called daniela [Music] [Music] foreign hmm foreign foreign oh [Music] micheline's aim is to get the swedish state to recognize daniela as a citizen since the father has swedish nationality but the bureaucracy makes her realize that without the father's acknowledgement things won't be that easy [Music] michelin has managed to get the father to acknowledge the baby daniela is officially a swedish girl and she can enjoy the benefits that the state grants to any citizen [Music] the state has also granted michelin asylum since she's officially the mother of a swedish minor [Music] michelin is still living with boto and his family boto's children marie therese and adam are like siblings for daniela [Music] however life in sweden is not easy micheline doesn't have a job doesn't speak swedish she still has a long way to go [Music] ten years later we go back to sweden to look for them but despite all this time having maintained a good relationship micheline is unexpectedly elusive foreign we decide to go and find boto who gives us some clues about michelin's new life [Music] confirms that micheline doesn't want to see us but we don't know why after numerous phone calls and emails finally micheline opens up and tells us the truth she has remarried and her new husband has forbidden her to have any contact with us micheline lives like any other swedish woman with a comfortable life which allows her to travel and buy expensive clothes far from the days when she slept on the subway things have also changed in sweden the country that has been so generous with michelin has decided to shield itself and close its doors to refugees coming in the parliament is voting today on one of the most restrictive laws in europe in this regard paradoxically the debate amongst political parties starts on world refugee day if passed the new legislation cancels permanent asylum and establishes a temporary one renewable every 13 months it also prevents family reunification the day after while voting is taking place humanitarian organizations protest outside the parliament in 2015 163 000 refugees arrived in sweden around 80 000 will be thrown out soon with the new law and they voted with a majority voting in favor which was very tragic because it's it's a it's a very black day for sweden and even a darker day for europe we have become literally one of the toughest eu member states in its asylum politics [Music] sweden has shielded itself closed its borders it has taken a dangerous step that many european countries could follow defending one's own the fear of what's alien and different the terrorism paranoia they challenge the international conventions that compel countries to protect the thousands of people fleeing war and death europe is naval gazing while a part of the world bleeds out [Music] boto's two children whom we met marie terres and adam are already teenagers marie terres is still in contact with daniela before when we was little we was like this we always played her in the park and everything we played we also watched tv movie or baking something together [Music] when her mom's travels she buys clothes i think she's gonna work with fashion because she's really into fashion and they are into micro course they like lose bhutan [Music] she went to paris last year with her mother [Music] [Music] sweden has given daniela the opportunities her mother didn't have in congo if she had been born there or in liberia like secret her life expectancy would have shortened 25 years it's just one example of the huge and ever increasing gap that separates the world's rich population from the most disadvantaged noelia's family in bolivia has managed to flank this gap which excludes millions of people from any chance of development when states give tools and support education the gap between these two worlds gets smaller but the states have failed to protect secret in liberia and al-aitri in india who died from malaria when she wasn't even one her death illustrates the tragic fact that in the world one in every six children die before the age of five half of them when they're only one month old a statistic that could be prevented and which today represents one of the biggest inequalities in the world [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: Real Stories

Views: 300,319

Keywords: birth circumstances, childhood hardships, cross-cultural stories, cultural backgrounds, cultural diversity, documentary storytelling, empowering girls, girls around the world, girls' empowerment stories, global citizenship awareness, global perspectives, human experience, lack of resources, life struggles, marginalized communities, poverty cycle breakers, poverty eradication, progress over time, societal changes, societal struggles

Id: r6LUL-aZBpg

Length: 55min 31sec (3331 seconds)

Published: Sun May 15 2022