While the movie, Trade, may be a somewhat glamorized and dramatized Hollywood film, you are left with questions regarding the plot. The film does however highlight the many of the realities of modern day slavery and human trafficking…a problem which plagues our global world. By giving a face to human trafficking, the film proves to be a great tool in raising much needed awareness to an issues that is all too often forgotten.
The film weaves the stories of various aspects of human trafficking and modern slavery, with a vivid reminder of the violence that greed causes. Taking the fate of a 13 year old Mexican girl kidnapped from the streets outside her home, and a young Polish mother tricked into thinking she was becoming a model, and few sideline stories. Children sold at auction to the highest bidder…like a pair of shoes on eBay…a whim, an indulgent desire to worn once and then tossed in the back of the closet when you have gotten your best out of them. Only these are not overpriced shoes, but the purity of innocent children, sold for nothing more than greed in a market of flesh.
The movie will leave you with moments of laughter as the young girl Adrian's(Paulina Gaitan) brother Jorge (Cesar Ramos) and Ray (Kevin Kline), a cop with a mission to find his own long lost daughter, engage in their own comedic clash of cultures and ages, while racing tirelessly across the country in search of Adrian. However these comic outtakes, are quickly broken, by the brutal images bestowed upon the human cargo, that Adrian and Veronica (Alicja Bachleda) have been thrust into like pieces of meat. Reality and desperation often take over, as time ticks away, and Jorge knows if they do not act quickly 13 year old Adrian will be lost forever.
The reality is, it's Hollywood, and not the best of it, the movie plot doesn't always make sense. Why is Ray willing to give up his life savings, and does a cop have that much sitting in the bank, to quickly grab to buy a girl he's never met? The end of the movie still leaves you with many unanswered questions, like: “What happened to Ray's daughter?, “Is she the vicious madam?”. Nontheless despite its plot and storyline pitfalls, the movie does make you think and it surely brings attention to a much need cause. For all of its woes, you will hopefully leave the theater asking yourself what you can do to help. One thing did stick with me in the movie, Ray said to Jorge when talking about his daughter:
“I realized I gave up too soon…which is something I do a lot of!’
Giving up too soon is something we all do a lot of, and we must not do in the case of modern day slavery and human trafficking. There is one such citizen activist group in DC, Stop Modern Slavery, who wasn't about to let movie viewers give up or forget once the credits started to roll. The group was on hand outside the E Street Cinema, in downtown, Washington D.C., to hand movie goers more facts on modern slavery and human trafficking. Information was given to patrons from Free the Slaves, Stop Modern Slavery, and Dreams of Freedom (which is hosting fundraising and awareness events in DC from October 8-13).
We cannot all buy and free a slave, like Ray, but we can all raise awareness and become active in the fight to end human trafficking and stomp out slavery once and for all!
*The movie is based on the 2004 NY Times article, “The Girls Next Door”, by Peter Landesman
Human Trafficking Links
