Film screenings illuminate sex trafficking issues

Next week, the Northwest Coalition Against Trafficking film festival will come to PSU for the first time. The festival will showcase two films—The Day My God Died on Tuesday, Jan. 10, and Wonderland on Thursday, Jan. 12—both of which present different aspects of underage sex trafficking as it occurs both internationally and domestically. The screenings will be held at the Smith Memorial Student Union from 6 to 8 p.m. They are free for PSU students and will be followed by question and answer sessions with survivors of human trafficking.

This event gives PSU students an opportunity to gain understanding of the complex issue of human trafficking. Kari Anne McDonald, events coordinator for the Women’s Resource Center at PSU, explained the importance of this event and the mutual benefit of this first-time partnership between the NWCAT and the WRC.

“It can be difficult to understand the issue,” McDonald said. “Trafficking is such a loaded word, but it occurs here and worldwide. This gives good info to people.”

“The Coalition was looking for a space to show the films,” McDonald said. “I thought their missions and goals fit in with what we are trying to do here at the WRC. One of our goals in partnering with organizations that are working to end human trafficking is to help educate students about the problem and open a dialogue.”

The Day My God Died explores the trading of underage girls in the red light district of zvzMumbai, the largest red light district in the world. It follows the victims from their Nepalese villages, through kidnapping, captivity and life as a commodity in a multi-million dollar global industry in which over 2,500 children are trafficked daily. Aided by big-name narrators Tim Robbins and Winona Ryder, the film’s story is spoken through rescued Nepalese girls who relate their experiences in candid interviews. Several scenes explore the Mumbai brothels using footage from hidden handheld cameras.

“It’s intense and heavy. It feels like it gets you in there and you see what’s going on,” McDonald said of the film.

The Day My God Died also addresses the evident lack of resources for trafficking survivors. HIV-AIDS infects the majority of victims and those who manage to escape are faced with crippling illness, trauma and little in terms of medical or social aid in their lives after emancipation.

The issue of the sex trafficking industry hits home in Portland, where instances of human trafficking reported are among the highest in the United States. According to the third quarter 2011 report published by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, there were 48 calls placed to the hotline from Oregon, 20 of which were placed from within Portland city limits. Ten of those calls were classified as crisis calls. Of 11 cases that specifically referenced potential sex trafficking, four were marked as possibly involving minors.

“It might seem far away, but you look at 82nd Avenue and it’s right there,” said PSU senior English major Nathan Robnett-Conover. “In the spring of 2008 I was working at the Mother Teresa Center Kalighat in Calcutta, which is in the red-light district there. It was really intense walking the avenues. There were children of the girls in the brothels just running around outside.”

“It’s important to keep in mind, even though it’s more difficult to see…but it’s a real issue in our city,” Robnett-Conover said.

“The biggest issue right now is the lack of collaboration between groups working on this issue and support for trafficking survivors,” said PSU professor of University Studies and international trafficking expert Christopher Carey. “This is an interdisciplinary problem and it requires health, social service, legal, vocational training, housing and educational aspects.”

Wonderland is the dramatized adaptation of the story of ’70s porn star John Holmes (Val Kilmer) and his underage girlfriend Dawn Schiller (Kate Bosworth), and Holmes’ involvement with the Wonderland Murders. Though the debauched excess of the Los Angeles porn scene of the ‘70s and ‘80s bears little resemblance to the prison-like brothels of India, and carries little of the real-world gravity, Wonderland does touch on the issue of at-risk youth being coerced through drugs and manipulation.

During fall term 2011, PSU formed its own Students Against Human Trafficking group. Carey, who has taught several classes on human trafficking, explained the potential that students have in engaging this issue.

“PSU students are at the forefront of this issue and they do not even know it,” Carey said. “They are at an urban university whose mission of civic engagement and social responsibility makes them prime candidates to work against human trafficking.”

The NWCAT is a project of Soroptomist, an international women’s organization that works to improve the lives of women in their communities.

Tickets to these free events may be reserved online at the NWCAT website: nwcatfilmfest2012.eventbrite.com