Plot Synopsis

HALF THE SKY chronicles New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and celebrity advocates, as they travel to Asia and Africa to meet inspiring individuals and discover how the oppression of women and girls is being confronted. In this two-night, four-hour event, the following celebrities appear: Eva Mendes, who investigates gender-based violence in Sierra Leone, a country where most of the assaults and rapes go unreported, and meets Amie Kandeh, the operator of three of West Africa's sexual assault referral centers; Meg Ryan, who travels to Cambodia, where 30 percent of prostitutes are children, and meets Somaly Mam, a world-renowned leader in the anti-trafficking struggle after being sold into slavery as a young girl; Gabrielle Union, who visits Vietnam with former Microsoft marketing executive John Wood, who started Room to Read, an organization which works to promote literacy and equal education for girls across the developing world; Diane Lane, who examines maternal mortality in Somaliland, where one in 12 women dies in childbirth due to poor nutrition and the effects of female genital mutilation, a brutal ritual that has been performed on more than 130 million women around the world; America Ferrera, who visits the Kalighat red-light district in India, where 90 percent of sex workers' daughters follow their mothers into prostitution and, of the three million prostitutes in the country, 1.2 million are children; and Olivia Wilde, who sees firsthand how women entrepreneurs in Kenya are changing not only their lives but their communities. Airing as a special presentation of INDEPENDENT LENS, George Clooney introduces the program.