Human Trafficking

Whilst conducting research into the subject of Human Trafficking I came across this fictional series -that is based on real stories - on YouTube and decided to take a look at the first part. I ended up watching the entire series because I was completely consumed by the disturbing and graphic content. The series follows the stories of sex trafficking victims across the world and the inhumane underworld that they are forced into after they are kidnapped, beaten and raped for the first of many times.
The series does not do anything to disguise the reality of what happens to these people as they are exploited beyond belief. As an audience member I was entirely fixated and my focus did not break throughout the entire series, it is shocking, disturbing, sickening and leaves you in a state of disbelief. It showed me the entire subject from many viewpoints, particularly the viewpoint of those individuals conducting the crime. I was able to see how the victims 'owners' operate and how they lure, manipulate, threaten and control their victims.
This provided an insight into the psychological damage that the victims endure and the long-term effect it has on them.
A quote from the film that really stood out for me was this; ‘An ounce of cocaine, wholesale 1200 dollars but you can only sell it once, a woman or a child 50-100 dollars but you can sell them each day every day over and over and over again. The mark up is immeasurable.’This series has influenced the way in which I plan to approach the making of our thriller; I now want to create something that shows how alarmingly close sexual trafficking is to you and how easy it is for criminals to target and abduct their victims. Every year over 1,000,000 children, women and men are trafficked and once they are gone, they are rarely found again. In most cases they die within 4 years as they are overworked, murdered or beaten to death. Many victims contract STDs, Hepatitis or AIDS, also resulting in death. I hope for our Thriller to be just as realistic and hard-hitting as this series was for me.