UNIS/NAR/900
27 May 2005

UNODC Video Spot Wins Award at Film Festival

VIENNA, 27 May (UN Information Service) -- "Better Future", a 60-second video spot produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has won the award in the short films category at the first United Nations documentary film festival “Stories from the Field”, held in New York City.

Human trafficking is a global problem with more than 700,000 persons falling victim every year to trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labour. UNODC’s global television campaign on human trafficking, launched in 2001, is designed to build a diverse and widespread understanding of the issues surrounding trafficking in human beings and to illustrate some of the steps being taken to address this growing problem.

The award-winning video spot “Better Future” is part of UNODC’s global television campaign. It is about trafficking in men, women and children for bonded and forced labour, in factories, on farms or as domestic servants. With the cooperation of broadcasters worldwide, UNODC has arranged for the transmission of this and other spots on national networks in over 40 countries, as well as on global and regional networks such as CNN International, BBC World and MTV Asia. Millions of people worldwide have viewed “Better Future”, and it has also been distributed to non-governmental organizations to serve as an awareness-creation tool at the local level.

The “Stories from the Field” documentary film festival was a joint undertaking between the United Nations Department of Public Information, the New School University and Media Communications Association International, as part of the events being held to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the United Nations. The participating films showed how the United Nations field offices and agencies, in response to decisions by Member States, have empowered the poor, healed the sick and brought justice to the exploited. Some 80 films were submitted and 30 of them screened for general viewing over two days in New York.

"Better Future" was produced by UNODC, and is available in a 60-second and a 30-second version in English, French, Spanish and German. To view the film online, visit: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/multimedia.html  

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For more information contact:
Norha Restrepo, Officer-in-Charge
Advocacy Section, UNODC
E-mail: unodc@unodc.org