announcer: coming up on "21st century," one man's courage changes the world. and from italy, despair and suffering: migrant stories. dale van boven: it is inexplicable and indefensible for the united nations not to react urgently to situations of gross violations of human rights. man: south america in the 1970s and early eighties, hundreds of thousands of people

were tortured, killed, and disappeared under military dictatorships. van boven: our primary duty is towards the peoples in whose name the united nations charter was written. bertie ramcharan: he was by far the greatest human rights leader the u.n. has ever had. van boven: my name is dale van boven. i was the director of the united nations for human rights from 1977 to 1982.

tom mccarthy: there was a lot of pressure of all kinds from certain governments, having their secret service agents in the corridors looking after what we were doing, following what the ngos were doing, threatening people, putting pressure on other governments. latin america had strong dictatorships. ngos couldn't mention government names in the commission for violations. van boven: it is inexplicable and indefensible for the united

nations not to react urgently to situations of gross violations of human rights. ramcharan: it was entirely unheard of that a human rights director would take vigorous positions. everything that a senior u.n. official did was closely monitored, and so it was his great breakthrough that he decided to act, and in some instances to speak out publicly against gross violations of human rights. van boven: there is a tendency, at that time at least, that the u.n. should remain low-key. some felt that i was too outspoken. quiet diplomacy is perhaps what they thought. more productive than to speak up. i think this is very questionable, this position.

van boven: when, for instance, the coup d'état occurred in chile, a special public procedure was created. josé zalaquett: the military felt that they had to give the impression right from day one that they meant business, therefore they bombed the palace of governments. heraldo munoz: september 11, that was a dark day and a bit rainy. after that, i would say that the life of a whole generation of chileans changed. [music plays] zalaquett: the military authorities managed to take control of the whole of the country, putting in

prison thousands of people. they even put them in the national soccer stadium because there were not enough places in the prisons. [man speaking spanish on loudspeaker]

van boven: on the first day of our official visit, we had to pay a sort of courtesy visit to the head of state. that was pinochet. he was sitting there all by himself in a tower, in his office. the desk before him was clean. he accused the u.n., the working group, of serving the communist purposes. this we strongly refuted. it was argued that his country was known for committing serious violations of human rights, and we wanted to investigate that on the spot. in fact, the general became very angry. mccarthy: the chile report may well have been the first u.n. report that showed how the military dictatorship can destroy the living standards of people, and we could see it

when we went there. munoz: the international committee knows through the investigations that were carried out by human rights missions from europe, dale van boven. we never thought that it would be the level of murder or torture or disappearance of exiles. it can happen anywhere. mccarthy: the next big challenge for us after chile were the disappearances, in particular in argentina, but in other countries, too.

mccarthy: one of the first things that theo did was to open his office and our office to victims and to their representatives. meeting people who have been tortured is very different than reading reports sent in by nongovernmental organizations. van boven: the mothers, the madres, the abuelas, they were very visible and well known, and as a group

of committed women, i think, who were directly involved, that had a great impact on public opinion. van boven: disappeared children. the government claims that it was all a part of terrorism and terrorist gangs, and the question was put, are these little children, are they also terrorists? alberto d'alotto: in the seventies, i was in exile in france after having left my country. i started to work in the struggle for human rights, and i heard about what was taking

place here in geneva in this very same place, room 17 of the palais des nations. there was a person working here in this place, and it was dale van boven. for the first time, an important person in the u.n. appeared to say, listen, in argentina something terrible is happening. we have to pay attention to that. in terms of what was the struggle to restore democracy and human rights in argentina, that was a very important point in his dictatorship. van boven: efforts were made in the commission on human rights in 1979 to establish a working group on disappeared persons, but this was blocked by argentina and others. now it was a year later that this initiative was successful, and so the working group was established in 1980. rather late, but better late than never.

mccarthy: it happened in el salvador and guatemala, indonesia, in the philippines. we covered 15 countries in our first report. the next year, by 1981 and 1982, we could list many people whose lives had been saved because we were able to get a cable to the government telling them that we had information that this person has been kidnapped, and they needed to release him. and that had worked and still works today for many, many people. ramcharan: he was by far the greatest human rights leader the u.n. has ever had. that's what i would say. van boven: i've always felt that our primary duty is towards the peoples in whose name the united nations charter was written. and i have maintained that whenever necessary, we must speak out on matters of principle regardless of whom we please or displease within

or outside the organization. mccarthy: even today, governments make big efforts to stop the united nations from investigating their human rights practices. and the question is if it didn't matter, why would they make such an investment? van boven: we do have to care for the dignity of people, and solidarity is an extremely important issue to make the world worth living in. if the average person only cares about him or herself, then that is a world of mental poverty.

we should try not to set our standards on the basis of mental poverty, but on solidarity with fellow human beings from far away or just close by. leonard doyle: you know, migration is the oldest adaptation strategy that man knows. reporter: in europe, it's the biggest movement of people

since world war ii. fleeing war, hardship, and persecution, many end up in italian detention centers.

doyle: you know, migration is the oldest adaptation strategy

that man knows. if you think about it, how people spread around the world through migration, so we're not talking about something that's just been invented in the last couple of months or weeks now that we're paying more attention to it in the media. doyle: i mean, the italians, because they are closest, if you will, to north africa, they take an enormous number. many of these migrants and

refugees wish to go through italy very quickly and move on to sweden, where they may have family, or germany, where they know there's a chance of a job. so the italians have been extraordinarily generous. they've funded the mare nostrum maritime rescue operation for two years. they've saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and they continue to do so. but they're in a tough place, too, because like every country, they have their own domestic politics, and there's a backlash against migrants. migrants are not very favorably looked on.

[women speaking foreign language]

[shouting] [pounding] doyle: although it's not necessarily a pretty picture that you see when you get behind the walls of any judicial system, but i would suggest take the same view behind the walls of any other european country's judicial system and it's not going to be much different.

doyle: refugees are people who are entitled to asylum under the 1951 geneva convention, but outside of that group, you have a huge number of vulnerable people who don't necessarily neatly fit the category. those could be unaccompanied minors, and there are tens of thousands of those who've moved across into europe. victims of trafficking, sexual trafficking. the biggest victims of trafficking are labor migrants, who are being abused. so what are they? are they economic migrants or are they somehow fitting closer into the refugee category?

doyle: the victims really are the people who are suffering. a lot of the result of that is that people have a dim view of migrants. whereas the reality is that migrants enrich and help societies flourish, diversify societies, and without them, you're going to be stuck in a tough place. but the mood music certainly in europe isn't very favorable towards migrants at the moment.

narrator: the u.n. refugee agency, unhcr, calls for stabilization measures in europe, including strong support to countries hosting refugees and migrants, information campaigns on the dangers of the sea journey, and legal pathways to seek protection in europe. announcer: coming up on a future episode of "21st century..."

announcer: girls becoming mothers when they're still children themselves. announcer: changing the momentum in the dominican republic, where almost a quarter of all mothers are teenagers. úó8úxúóóóañógú

jacques: 1.4 billion adults are overweight, and 500 million of us are obese. that's 40% over our ideal weight. it's officially categorized as a disease. i'm jacques peretti and in this series i'm going to trace those responsible for a revolution in our eating habits. i'll be looking at how decisions made behind closed doors transformed food into an addiction. people who have a hard time controlling their weight, their brains are being hijacked.