Very Young Girls
Rachel Lloyd, 83 min, 2007
“Lucky ones get a chance at a normal life”
Very Young Girls is an exposé of the commercial sexual exploitation of girls in New York City as they are sold on the streets by pimps, and treated as adult criminals by police. The film follows barely-adolescent girls in real time, using vérité and intimate interviews with them, documenting their struggles and triumphs as they seek to exit the commercial sex industry. The film also uses startling footage shot by pimps themselves, giving a rare glimpse into how the cycle of exploitation begins for many women.
The film identifies hope for these girls in the organization GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services), a recovery agency founded and run by Rachel Lloyd, herself a survivor of sexual exploitation. GEMS is committed to ending commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking of children by changing individual lives, transforming public perception, and revolutionizing the systems and policies that impact sexually exploited youth.
The Whistleblower
Larysa Kondracki,112 min, 2011
“Nothing is more dangerous than the truth.”
Inspired by true events, Kathy (Rachel Weisz) is an American police officer who takes a job working as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia. Her expectations of helping to rebuild a devastated country are dashed when she uncovers a dangerous reality of corruption, cover-up and intrigue amid a world of private contractors and multinational diplomatic doubletalk.
Price of Sex
Mimi Chakarova, 73 min, 2011
“Once a girl is sold into prostitution, it is almost impossible to escape.” – Mimi Chakarova
Price of Sex is a feature-length documentary about young Eastern European women who’ve been drawn into a netherworld of sex trafficking and abuse. Intimate, harrowing and revealing, it is a story told by the young women who were supposed to be silenced by shame, fear and violence. Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova, who grew up in Bulgaria, takes us on a personal investigative journey, exposing the shadowy world of sex trafficking from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Western Europe. Filming undercover and gaining extraordinary access, Chakarova illuminates how even though some women escape to tell their stories, sex trafficking thrives
Fatal Promises
Katharina Rohrer, 88 min, 2009
“In the era of globalization one of the most exploited commodities is human life.”
Through personal stories of victims and interviews with politicians, NGO representatives and activists, Fatal Promises provides a comprehensive look at the realities of human trafficking versus the rhetoric of politicians and pundits who claim to be making significant strides in combating this horrific crime against humanity. Ukraine, the second largest country in Europe, is a prime example of a nation struggling to establish a stable economy, a functioning legal system and to control criminal enterprises of which Human Trafficking is the largest. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of women, children and men have been trafficked from Ukraine to the United States, Western Europe and the Balkans since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Red Leaves Falling
Monica D. Ray, 24 min, 2009
“A story of child sex trafficking”
Red Leaves Falling tells the story of many young girls who are trafficked everyday as a result of poverty. Men and women go into remote towns and villages promising good jobs to poor families, who unsuspectingly sell their daughters into prostitution.
Call + Response
Justin Dillon, 86 min, 2008
“A movement to end modern day slavery”
CALL+RESPONSE is a first-of-its-kind feature documentary film that reveals the world’s 27 million dirtiest secrets: there are more slaves today than ever before in human history. CALL+RESPONSE goes deep undercover where slavery is thriving from the child brothels of Cambodia to the slave brick kilns of rural India to reveal that in 2009, Slave Traders made more money than Google, Nike and Starbucks combined.
Sacrifice
Ellen Bruno, 50 min, 1999
“The story of child prostitutes from Burma”
Each year thousands of young girls are recruited from rural Burmese villages to work in the sex industry in neighboring Thailand. Held for years in debt bondage in illegal Thai brothels, they suffer extreme abuse by pimps, clients, and the police. Sacrifice examines the social, cultural, and economic forces at work in the trafficking of Burmese girls into prostitution in Thailand. It is the story of the valuation and sale of human beings, and the efforts of teenage girls to survive a personal crisis born of economic and political repression.
The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan
Najibullah Quraishi and Jamie Doran, 60 min, 2010
“It’s an ancient practice, secretly revived–young boys sold by families to ‘entertain’ wealthy merchants and warlords. An undercover investigation into this illicit sex trade…”
As the United States deepens its commitment to Afghanistan, FRONTLINE takes viewers inside the war-torn nation to reveal a disturbing practice that is once again flourishing in the country: the organized sexual abuse of adolescent boys.
In The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan, Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi (Behind Taliban Lines) returns to his native land to expose an ancient practice that has been brought back by powerful warlords, former military commanders and wealthy businessmen. Known as “bacha bazi” (literal translation: “boy play”), this illegal practice exploits street orphans and poor boys, some as young as 11, whose parents are paid to give over their sons to their new “masters.” The men dress the boys in women’s clothes and train them to sing and dance for the entertainment of themselves and their friends. According to experts, the dancing boys are used sexually by these powerful men.
The program will conclude with a detailed update of attempts to arrange the rescue of one of the dancing boys profiled in the film, an 11-year-old boy bought by Dastager from an impoverished rural family. It is a dramatic final chapter, full of new shocks and surprises, and, in the end, provides a measure of justice for the boy and his master.
