Pink Saris - Wednesday June 22 at 9 pm ET on TVO

Pink Saris -- Canadian Premiere
Wednesday June 22, 2011 at 9 pm ET on TVO
100 minutes
Directed by Kim Longinotto
A Channel 4 Production

In Pink Saris, director Kim Longinotto (Sisters in Law, Rough Aunties) examines the plight of rural underclass women in India as she follows the work of Sampat Pal, the leader of an unlikely band of activists.

Pal was married as a pre-pubescent girl into a family that made her work hard, beat her, then forced her out of her village for being disobedient. Today, as the head of the Gulabi Gang (the Pink Gang), she's out to get justice for other ostracized, abused women and girls in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

"When a man does wrong, give him a beating," she tells Renu, a 15-year-old girl whose husband has abandoned her and who is being raped by her father-in-law. There's also Rekha, a 14-year-old "untouchable" who is three months pregnant and homeless -- unable to marry her unborn child's father because of her low caste.

While she boldly positions herself into the centre of various family dramas, Pal herself is a vulnerable figure: she has family pressures of her own to deal with and a growing clan of dependents she's struggling to support. Still, Pink Saris reverberates with hope and empowerment against the odds.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• TVO
• India
• Caste system
• child marriage
• human rights

[Theresa968]

@Ahmed7k7 African women suffer to.

[Theresa968]

@Jellyfruits This is happening to women in asia and africa. The sufferage of people is wrong and needs to stop ASAP.

[Theresa968]

Somebody has to take a stand and say enough. Sampat Pal Devi rocks!!

[Ahmed7k7]

This Doc. is hard to watch and comprehend the abuse and hardship women and girls going through in certain part of the world, may be there are lot worts that is going on around the world that we are not aware of.

[Jellyfruits]

This documentary is eye-opening, and inspiring. I don't have half the courage these women posses...