CNBC Special Report

Several Muslim women activists discuss their stories and the state of women's rights in Muslim-majority nations.

The story of the battle to free Debbie Peagler, an incarcerated survivor of brutal domestic violence. Over 20 years in prison cannot crush the spirit of this determined African-American woman, despite the injustices she has experienced, first at the hands of a duplicitous boyfriend who beat her and forced her into prostitution, and later by prosecutors who cornered her into a life behind bars for her connection to the murder of her abuser. Her story takes an unexpected turn two decades later when a pair of rookie land-use attorneys cut their teeth on her case -- and attract global attention to the troubled intersection of domestic violence and criminal justice.

In a Mexican municipality besieged by drug trafficking, a mayor uses controversial methods to maintain order in one of the richest and safest areas in Latin America.

Through the intimate portraits of five student survivors, It Happened Here exposes the alarming pervasiveness of sexual assault on college campuses.

Through the lives of three Colombian journalists, the film recounts the peril journalists endured while covering Colombia's narcoterrorism violence in the 1980s during the reign of Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel, the 1990s during the rise of corruption in the military and 2000s during a behind-closed-doors oppressive administration.

Filmmaker and gay activist Sridhar Rangayan embarks on a personal journey to expose the human rights violations faced by the LGBTQ community in India due to a draconian law Section 377 and homophobic social mores of a patriarchal society.