Prendergast, Hargitay on Making of SVU Episode "Hell"

Actress Mariska Hargitay and Enough's John Prendergast co-authored a story for the Huffington Post today about "Hell," the all-new episode of Law & Order: SVU, which airs tomorrow night.

Law & Order: SVU Takes on the Issue of Child Soldiers and Sex Slaves in Africa

It's midnight. We are in a studio in North Bergen, New Jersey, filming take after take of a scene for an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. We're tired. It's the fourteenth hour of what will be a sixteen-hour day. We're tired, but we're ambitious. When the episode airs on March 31st, 2009. at 10PM on NBC, we need it to reach not only into households across this country, but all the way into the dense forests of one of the most troubled places on earth. The episode is called "Hell," and it is based on the experiences of child soldiers and sexual slaves in Central Africa.

The history of the region is harrowing.

For over two decades, the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, has brought untold suffering to the people of central Africa--for many years in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, more recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This small but ruthless militia specializes in abducting children and enlisting them to serve as soldiers and sex slaves. Boys are brainwashed and given guns; sometimes they're forced to kill their own family members. Girls serve as "wives" for the militia commanders, often bearing their children.

Click here to read the rest of the post.

Check out the preview for the episode and learn more about the LRA on our special page.

• Mariska Hargitay
• Lord's Resistance Army
• Sexual and Gender Based Violence