Education
Speakers Bureau
The Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery has a Speakers Bureau of educators who are able to give informational presentations about Human Trafficking in Hawaii to community groups, civic clubs, churches, nonprofit organizations, social services, law enforcement, universities, schools and other organizations who would like to have more understanding about the growing problem of Human Trafficking in Hawaii and how concerned citizens may be able to help prevent this modern-day slavery from happening.
For Booking Information please contact:
RB@traffickjamming.org or call 808-343-5056
Films that Address Trafficking or Pimp Culture
Film is a powerful way to inform and to educate the masses. Below is a list of films that can help apprise you to the realities of trafficking.
For essays, reports, and other written material about human trafficking, please visit our Links to Allies page.
American Pimp
Dirs. Albert & Allen Hughes - 1999
Filmmakers Albert and Allen Hughes' riveting and disquieting documentary probes the exploitative world of urban pimp culture. Interlacing interviews, surveillance footage and clips from 1970s blaxploitation films, American Pimp sketches the careers of these flesh peddlers. This documentary exposes how pimp/traffickers think, operate, and communicate within modern-day slavery.
This film is available on netflix.com
Born into Brothels
Dirs. Ross Kauffman & Zana Briski
The most stigmatized people in Calcutta's red light district are not the prostitutes, but their children. In the face of abject poverty, abuse, and despair, these kids have little possibility of escaping their mother's fate or for creating another type of life. Winner of an Academy Award for Best Documentary.
In Born into Brothels, directors Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman chronicle the amazing transformation of the children they come to know in the red light district. Briski, a professional photographer, gives them lessons and cameras, igniting latent sparks of artistic genius that reside in these children who live in the most sordid and seemingly hopeless world. The photographs taken by the children are not merely examples of remarkable observation and talent; they reflect something much larger, morally encouraging, and even politically volatile: art as an immensely liberating and empowering force.
Cargo: Innocence Lost
Dir. Michael Cory Davis, 2008
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. Award-winning director and writer, Michael Cory Davis (Svetlana’s Journey, Hollywood Film Festival 2005 winner, best short), makes his second directorial foray into this must-see, thought-provoking film that is interwoven with a raw, intense narrative based on numerous true stories from victims of the sex trade.
Hip Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes
Dir. Byron Hurt, 2007
Hip Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes is a riveting documentary that examines representations of gender roles in hip-hop and rap music through the lens of filmmaker Byron Hurt, a former college quarterback turned activist. Conceived as a “loving critique” from a self-proclaimed “hip-hop head,” Hurt examines issues of masculinity, sexism, violence and homophobia in today’s hip-hop culture. This film is an excellent exposé on hip-hop, pimp culture, misogyny, the marketing of the black male mainstream music and how these things have influenced younger generations.
Missionary Positions
Dir. Bill Day, 2005
A candid, consistently entertaining documentary that follows two hip young pastors on a God-given mission to save the souls of the countless sinners held captive by the "porn plague" ruining America. Their road's a rocky one, of course, as they're beset by money problems, personality conflicts, vicious hate mail, and Turkish computer hackers intent on destroying the pastors’ online ministry. Whether you believe pornography is a scourge of modern society or a fundamental First Amendment right, you'll be fascinated by these ardent, good-natured men of the cloth.
Pussycat Preacher
Dir. Bill Day, 2008
A documentary exposé about lovable stripper-turned -evangelist Heather Veitch, who's dedicated to helping women in America's sex industry. Her passion has won Veitch the admiration of the women she preaches to, as well as her local community. But she's also sparked outrage among right-wing Christians, offended by Heather's background and what they regard as her immoral mission. As the documentary's centerpiece, Veitch is warm-hearted, funny, a total delight, and her story rips open the heart of a religion that doesn't always practice what it preaches.
Selling of Innocents, The
Dir. William Coban, 1996
The Selling of Innocents is an Emmy award winning documentary which reveals the trafficking of young girls from Nepal to brothels in Mumbai, showing how women are lured to the big city with false promises of jobs and money.
Turning a Corner
Dir. Salome Chasnoff
Turning a Corner tells the stories of people involved in the sex trade and their efforts to raise public awareness of systemic injustice and promote needed reforms. Created in a media activism workshop with over a dozen members of Prostitution Alternatives Round Table (PART), this groundbreaking film recounts their survival and triumph over homelessness, violence and discrimination, and gives rare insights into Chicago's sex trade industry. Shot by prostituted persons themselves.
Very Young GirlsDirs. David Schisgall, Nina Alvarez & Priya Swaminathan
Very Young Girls is an expose of human trafficking that follows thirteen and fourteen year old American girls as they are seduced, abused, and sold on New York’s streets by pimps, and treated as adult criminals by police. The film follows the barely-adolescent girls in real time, using vérité and intimate interviews with them as they are first lured on to the streets and the dire events which follow. The film also uses startling footage shot by the brazen pimps themselves giving a rare glimpse into how the cycle of street life begins for many women.
The film identifies hope for these girls in the organization GEMS (Girls Education and Mentoring Services), a recovery center founded and run by Rachel Lloyd, herself a survivor of sexual exploitation. She and her staff are heroic and relentless in their mission to help girls sent by the court or found on the street. Given a chance to piece their lives back together, some will succeed, but many will remain suspended on the edge of two different worlds consistently battling the force that will suck them back into the underground. Very Young Girls’ unprecedented access to girls and pimps will change the way law enforcement, the media, and society as a whole look at sexual exploitation, street prostitution and human trafficking that is happening right in our own backyard.