We encourage you to learn more about the issues facing women in the sex industry including human trafficking. Please be aware some viewers may find some of the following content extremely disturbing.

Multimedia

The Age multimedia page on trafficking in persons, July 2009

 

Audio

A survivor of sex trafficking in Australia speaks

 

Short Film

Sex Slavery: 4 Corners Investigation

Trafficking is Torture, with Emma Thompson 

The Journey: A short film on sex trafficking Part 1. with Emma Thompson

The Journey: A short film on sex trafficking Part 2. with Emma Thompson

Trafficking in Women - UNODC Public Service Announcement

Forced Prostitution - Spain

Refugees Turn to Prostitution  
 

 

Film and Documentary

The Price of Sex (documentary) 

The Price of Sex is about a young EasternEuropean women who’ve been drawn into anetherworld 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. 

 

The Jammed (film)

A story about human trafficking and the sex slave trade in Australia and the search for three girls trapped by a trafficking syndicate. Rated: MA15+ (2007, 88 minutes) The film is available at local Video stores or you can order online 

 

Trafficked (documentary)  

Trafficked tells the story of a former Australian Federal Police officer, Chris Payne's ongoing investigation into the fate of two young Thai girls trafficked to Australia: Nikki, a thirteen year old Thai girl found in a Sydney brothel in 1995, and, Phuongtong Simpalee, a 27 year old Thai woman who died in custody at the Villawood Detention centre in 2000. The documentary follows Chris Payne as he investigates stories of women and children caught up in prostitution's 'trade routes' in Australia, Thailand and Cambodia. Payne is a former Australian Federal Police officer who headed a special task force formed to combat sex trafficking in the mid 1990s. Rated: M (2005, 52 minutes) Order the film online Film resources are available care of Film Australia  

 

Trafficked - The Reckoning (documentary)

A tough and suspenseful investigative documentary that takes us into the brutal underworld of the slave trade in Australia and Thailand. It will grip audiences as they follow two remarkable people, Chris Payne and Ning, struggling to put to rest an incident that has haunted them for fifteen years.

 

The Whistleblower (film)

Kathryn Bolkovac is a Nebraskan police officer who takes a UN peacekeeping job in post-war Bosnia. Her expectations of helping rebuild a devastated country are dashed when she uncovers a dangerous reality of corruption, cover-up and diplomatic immunity amidst an expansive human trafficking industry. Based on actual events. Rated: MA (2010, 1 hour 52 minutes)

 

Sacrifice (documentary)

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. (2007, 50 minutes) The film can be ordered through Brunofilms.com.

 

Cargo: Innocence Lost (documentary)

A compelling documentary, Cargo: Innocence Lost, unveils the dark underworld of sex trafficking through compelling interviews with some of the country’s top officials on the subject, victims’ advocates and victims themselves, who were rescued in Texas. It explores how the business of sex trafficking has become a $9 billion dollar a year industry and why it still remains a shrouded crime in our nation. This film can be ordered as a 'G' rated or 'R' rated film via the Cargo: Innocence Lost website.

 

 

Born into Brothels(documentary)

This documentary film traces the lives of several children in the Red Light district of India. The filmmaker, Zana Briski, is a New York based photographer who teaches a photography class to the children and attempts to enroll them in boarding schools in order to give them the opportunity for a better future. Most of the children, however, continue the lives that their parents had intended for them - prostitutes. (2005)

 

Sex Traffic (film)

Sex Traffic is the story of two young Moldovan sisters, kidnapped and trafficked through Romania, Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Italy to the dark side of London, betrayed by pimps and police, and fighting for their lives. The reverberations of their story are explosive, exposing far-reaching corruption that implicates big business in America and international peacekeeping forces in Europe alike. (2004) This is a two-part Channel 4 drama which can be viewed online here.

 

Tin Girls (documentary)

Every year in Nepal, some thousands of girls are sent to work in brothels all over India. Most of them are only 13 years old, and the rest of them are barely 18. Tin Girls aim at letting the voices of these girls be heard; girls who have had their childhoods robbed from them and have been treated like slaves from centuries past. (2003, 72 minutes) This film can be purchased through the Masala Project website.

 

The Day My God Died (documentary)

The Day My God Died lifts the veil of secrecy on child sex trafficking using footage from the brothels captured with spy camera technology. Narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Tim Robbins, The Day My God Died puts a human face on these abstract numbers as it recounts the stories of several Nepalese girls who were forced into the international child sex trade. (2003, 70 minutes) This film can be purchased via The Day My God Died website.

 

Trading Women (documentary)

Narrated by Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie, the documentary investigates the trade in minority girls and women from the hill tribes of Burma, Laos and China, into the Thai sex industry. Filmed on location in China, Thailand and Burma, Trading Girls follows the trade of women in all its complexity, entering the worlds of brothel owners, trafficked girls, voluntary sex-workers, corrupt police and anxious politicians. The film also explores the international community’s response to the issue. (2002)