Everything Bought and Sold on the Net - Who's Watching?

So, this weekend, I saw the movie “Trade,” featuring Kevin Kline as a police officer who helps Jorge, played by Cesar Ramos, look for his baby sister (Paulina Gaitan), who has been kidnapped. Her virginity is to be sold on the internet for thousands of dollars to the "lucky bidder." Like, “Maria Full of Grace,” it opened my eyes to the reality of the human trafficking throughout the world, and how the government is turning a blind eye to it.

This story is inspired by the New York Times report by Peter Landesman entitled "The Girls Next Door," and takes place in Mexico and America. The film was made for US audiences, although a substantial chunk of it is in Spanish, with subtitles.

The website for the movie offers a list of human rights organizations that are actively involved in ending present-day slave trading (see links below). Amazingly, the State department estimates "that as many as 800,000 people are trafficked over international frontiers each year, largely for sexual exploitation." Most are females and about half are minors. This movie highlights a human trafficking organization based in New Jersey; this issue is closer to home than many of us may like to believe. It is easier to deal with issues like slavery when we feel that it is taking place out of sight and out of mind, in some poor faraway country like Mexico, Bosnia, Thailand, or Cambodia. But sources claim the United States has become a "large-scale importer of sex slaves."

The mostly Mexican cast is phenomenal, their performances are warm and nuanced, and Ramos injects some much-needed humor when speaking to the gringos. Although this film is old in terms of the short lifespan of film releases (it came out in 2007), if you missed it, like I did, you need to go borrow it, buy it, netflix it or something - just stop buying bootleg movies on the street! The dialogue was great, the cinematography was incredible (the movie is beautiful to watch without any sound at all), and the story was painful, yet so important. Check out the trailer and please do not miss this film.

Resources:
www.tradethemovie.com
http://www.tradethemovie.com/get_involved.html for organizations against human trade