Saturday, June 30, 2007

Powerful

Wow. I came across a powerful documentary on sex trafficking yesterday. From what I can tell, it has been called by two different titles, “Sex Slaves” and “The Real Sex Traffic.” It is about 49 minutes long, and if you are interested in this topic, I would recommend this film.

Of course, the subject matter is intense, and there is some profanity, but I felt that the film was valuable and educational. Writer/Director Ric Esther Bienstock and a small crew gained access to the lives of several former trafficking victims from the former Soviet bloc.

More surprising, they also interviewed a trafficker named Vlad about his trafficking a woman named Katia. Vlad knew Katia and her husband, Viorel, and he offered to go with Katia on a trip to Turkey to buy supplies for her mother's store. He said he was going there anyway and could help Katia find her way. Katia and Viorel trusted him. Then Viorel got a call from Vlad, who told him matter-of-factly, “I sold your wife.”

The documentary follows Viorel from Ukraine to Turkey as he desperately tries to locate and buy Katia back from the pimp who purchased her.

The documentary does a fantastic job of helping us see the devastation of the victims and their families, and Bienstock also includes some great director’s notes on the official Web site (see the link above).

I saw the documentary online at Google videos. I assume it is legal; I hope I’m not sending you to a site that has posted the video in violation of copyright law.

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