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Inside the first all-woman UN peacekeeping unit

Co-director Geeta Gandbhir joins Anna Maria Tremonti to talk about the new stereotype-defying documentary "A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers".
CBC Radio ·
The new documentary "A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers" tells the story of the first all-women, predominantly Muslim UN peacekeeping unit. (G2P2 Films/​SOC Films)

These United Nations peacekeepers aren't your average blue helmets.

This is a group of 160 women from Bangladesh. They're tasked with an enormous job, part of the United Nations' Stabilizing Mission in Haiti.

And they make up the world's first all-woman, predominantly Muslim peacekeeping unit.

We meet this troop in a new documentary called "A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers". Its directors, Geeta Gandbhir and Sharmeen Obaid Chinoys, travelled with the women from their native Bangladesh to Haiti and back again.

They've documented the personal and professional struggles the women faced as they worked to defy stereotypes at home and abroad.

Co-director Geeta Gandbhir joined us in our Toronto studio.

This segment was produced by The Current's Lara O'Brien.

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