TV’s ‘Law and Order’ takes on rape in Congo - Transcript
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JEB SHARP: Last night one of commercial TVs most successful franchises, Law and Order, took on the issue of rape as a weapon of war in Eastern Congo. In an episode of Law and Order, Special Victim’s Unit, a Congolese woman who is in the U.S. illegally is the only witness to a rape. But she is afraid to testify because she fears she’ll be deported back to Eastern Congo.
FEMALE VOICE 1: What are you afraid of?
FEMALE VOICE 2: Do you have any idea what is happening in the Congo? Where I come from hundreds of thousands of women have been raped. In the eastern provinces it is used as a weapon of war.
FEMALE VOICE 1: Is that what happened to you?
FEMALE VOICE 2: They came into my house, five of them. They raped me and my daughter in front of my husband.
SHARP: Neal Baer is the executive producer of Law and Order, Special Victim’s Unit. He’s the person who decided to do an episode about rape in Eastern Congo. Neal Baer, this issue is not one that Americans know much about, why did you decide to have Law and Order SVU focus on it?
NEAL BAER: For exactly that reason. Many Americans don’t know what’s going on in Africa or around the world and I think there’s a misperception, often amongst television executives that American audiences aren’t interested. We think that they really are, and that’s why we told that story.
SHARP: And you worked on this episode with the advocacy group, Enough. I guess what I’m interested I knowing from you is are you simply trying to bring attention to the issue or is there something more you’re going for here?
BAER: We’re trying to, first and foremost, tell a gripping, emotional story that raises profound ethical issues about how people are treated. And, secondly, we want Americans and also we have worldwide audience as well. We’re in over 90 countries, to see the story and, we want to lay out what the issues are and have our audience decide what they think, how they may take action if they’re moved enough to do so by the show.
SHARP: And how do you actually do that as a television producer? How do you make this kind of television without becoming totally [phonetic] polemical?
BAER: First and foremost, thinking about story telling. We don’t set out to educate or entertain. If I thought about entertainment, it has this – - element to it where people will park their minds for an hour. But I’m also not interested in pulling down a map or writing on a chalkboard, these are the things you need to know. I am not interested in “educating” them. But if I tell a story about human beings and their struggles, then I don’t have to worry about being polemical because the story itself will be real and truthful and one hopes, get people to view the world in a new way.
SHARP: And in last night’s episode, you have the rape victim, or the rape survivor from Eastern Congo make a direct link between the violence against women there and American consumers.
FEMALE VOICE 2: The men who raped me were fighting for control of the minds that produce tin, tungsten and tantalum, the conflict minerals you so desperately need to make your cell phones and computers.
SHARP: So Neal Baer, I assume you made that direct link for a very specific reason.
BAER: We have worked with the Enough project and John Prendergast who runs the project, who’s done a lot of research in this area, and often times we spend money on things like computers and cell phones and take them for granted, but we don’t know where the materials that go into them come from. And there’s certainly a lot of information available about so-called conflict minerals that go into our cell phones and computers and we think it’s a good idea to present the public some of this information that we’re finding and that’s why we made that link. Many people haven’t heard about that link before and I hope that they’ll be interested to read more about it. We try to link people on our show to numbers of websites. We actually suggest ways that people can take action because often when you see a television show, you’re very moved by the emotional elements of the story. It really resonates for you. We know from studies we’ve done in the past, that like it or not, TV is more than just “entertainment”. People learn from it and we want to try to be as accurate as possible in putting information out there.
SHARP: Neal Baer is the executive producer of Law and Order, Special Victim’s Unit. Thanks for speaking with us Neal.
BAER: It’s my pleasure. Thank you.
