California's Forgotten Children is an American feature documentary directed by Melody C. Miller. [1] Winning Best Documentary at the 2018 Soho International Film Festival, [2] the film follows a diverse group of resilient survivors who have overcome commercial sexual exploitation of children and are changing the world by ensuring no child is left behind. [3] The film features stories from Time 100 Most Influential People Withelma "T" Ortiz Walker Pettigrew, [4] attorney Carissa Phelps, [5] [6] [7] academic scholar Minh Dang, [8] [9] activist Leah Albright-Byrd, [6] [10] therapist Nikolaos Al-Khadra, [11] and educator Rachel Thomas, M. Ed. [3]
The film supports the stories of survivors with current statistics and perspectives of sexual exploitation from professionals in social services, law enforcement, advocates, and child welfare; such as California Against Slavery, Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, Saving Innocence, Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting & Serving Sexually Exploited Youth, National Center for Youth Law, Oakland Police Department, Los Angeles Police Department, Runaway Girl Inc., Nancy O'Malley District Attorney for Alameda County, iEmpathize, Bay Area Women Against Rape, Survivor Alliance, SHADE Movement, Heat Watch, Sowers Education Group, Bridget's Dream, and many more. [12]
The documentary focuses on those who were wrongfully criminalized in the judicial system; manipulated and coerced by family, friends, and caretakers; and exploited by multiple slavery industries. [13]
On June 26, 2019, the film screened at the United States Senate to educate policy makers implementing laws to combat human trafficking. [14] [15] [16] It was honored at the United State of Women Summit in May 2018. [17] [18]
Internationally through film festivals, community screenings, and schools, the documentary continues to educate audiences and mobilize action to help victims of child sex trafficking. [19] [15] [14]
Mary Mazzio is an American documentary filmmaker, attorney, and a rower for the United States in the 1992 Olympics. She founded the independent film company 50 Eggs.
Lola Kenya Screen, or Lola Kenya Children's Screen is an audio-visual media festival and learning-by-doing mentorship for children and youth in eastern Africa. It encompasses film production, film criticism, cultural journalism, media literacy, marketing, and event planning and organisation.
Prajwala is a non-governmental organization based in Hyderabad, India, devoted exclusively to eradicating prostitution and sex trafficking. Founded in 1996 by Ms. Sunitha Krishnan and Brother Jose Vetticatil, the organization actively works in the areas of prevention, rescue, rehabilitation, re-integration, and advocacy to combat trafficking in every dimension and restore dignity to victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
Sunitha Krishnan is an Indian social activist and chief functionary and co-founder of Prajwala, a non-governmental organization that rescues, rehabilitates and reintegrates sex-trafficked victims into society. She was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri in 2016.
Shared Hope International (SHI) is a non-profit, non-governmental, Christian organization that exists to prevent sex trafficking, and restore and bring justice to women and children who have been victimized through sex trafficking. SHI is part of a worldwide effort to prevent and eradicate sex trafficking and slavery. Shared Hope operates programs in the United States, India, Nepal, and Jamaica. Shared Hope leads awareness and training, prevention strategies, restorative care, research, and policy initiatives to mobilize a national network of protection for victims.
Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri is an Indian-Canadian founder, futurist, film director, and artist.
Human trafficking in California is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor as it occurs in the state of California. Human trafficking, widely recognized as a modern-day form of slavery, includes
"the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."
Nefarious: Merchant of Souls is a 2011 American documentary film about modern human trafficking, specifically sexual slavery. Presented from a Christian worldview, Nefarious covers human trafficking in the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia, alternating interviews with re-enactments. Victims of trafficking talk about having been the objects of physical abuse and attempted murder. Several former prostitutes talk about their conversion to Christianity, escape from sexual oppression, and subsequent education or marriage. The film ends with the assertion that only Jesus can completely heal people from the horrors of sexual slavery.
Benjamin Nolot is an American filmmaker and the CEO and founder of Exodus Cry, a Christian social activist group focused on the issue of human trafficking which has expressed opposition to the "entire global sex industry, including prostitution, pornography, and stripping". Nolot has also been involved with an International House of Prayer ministry which is based in Sacramento, California.
Not My Life is a 2011 American independent documentary film about human trafficking and contemporary slavery. The film was written, produced, and directed by Robert Bilheimer, who had been asked to make the film by Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Bilheimer planned Not My Life as the second installment in a trilogy, the first being A Closer Walk and the third being the unproduced Take Me Home. The title Not My Life came from a June 2009 interview with Molly Melching, founder of Tostan, who said that many people deny the reality of contemporary slavery because it is an uncomfortable truth, saying, "No, this is not my life."
Pamela B. Green is a two-time Emmy-nominated, award-winning American film director and producer known for her work in feature film titles and motion graphics. She is the director, writer, editor and producer of the documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché. In 2020, she was awarded the Jane Mercer Researcher of the Year award at the FOCAL International awards for her work on Be Natural.
Prerana is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that works in the red-light districts of Mumbai, India to protect children vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking. It was established in 1986.
Stopping Traffic is a 2017 American documentary film directed by Sadhvi Siddhali Shree and produced by the team of monks at Siddhayatan Tirth.
Nanfu Wang is a Chinese-born American filmmaker. Her debut film Hooligan Sparrow premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2017. Her second film, I Am Another You, premiered at SXSW Film Festival in 2017 and won two special jury awards, and her third film, One Child Nation, won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Feature at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Wang is the recipient of a 2021 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking, from the Vilcek Foundation.
Jasmine Kaur Roy is a two time National Award-winning independent filmmaker from India, making short films and documentaries with Avinash Roy, under their banner Wanderlust Films. Her film Amoli is a documentary about the commercial sexual exploitation of children in India. The film won the 66th National Film Award for Best Investigative Film for the year 2018.
Chelo Alvarez-Stehle is a Spanish and American journalist and documentary filmmaker. In Japan, she worked as managing editor for International Press En Español weekly and as Tokyo correspondent for El Mundo daily. As a documentary filmmaker she is best known for Sands of Silence [es], winner of the 59th Southern California Journalism Awards by the Los Angeles Press Club for Best Feature Documentary.
Jeremiah Hayes is a Canadian film director, writer and editor. Hayes is known for being the co-director, co-writer and the editor of the documentary Reel Injun, which was awarded a Gemini Award in 2010 for Best Direction in a Documentary Program. In 2011, Reel Injun won a Peabody Award for Best Electronic Media. Hayes was the co-editor of Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which was awarded a Canadian Screen Award for Best Editing in a Documentary in 2018. In 2018, Rumble won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Length Documentary, and in 2017 Rumble won the Special Jury Award for Masterful Storytelling at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. In 2020, Rumble received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary. In 2021, Reel Injun is featured in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures core exhibition of the Stories of Cinema.
Sands of Silence: Waves of Courage is a 2016 documentary film that addresses the spectrum of sexual violence, from child sexual abuse and clergy abuse to rape and sex trafficking. It was directed, written and produced by filmmaker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle.
Sadhvi Siddhali Shree is a US based Jain monk, film director, author, TEDx speaker, Iraq War veteran and activist. She is mostly known for her two documentaries Stopping Traffic (2017) and Surviving Sex Trafficking (2022) which are based on the global problem of human and sex trafficking.
Miriam Chandy Menacherry is a Keralite documentary filmmaker and producer based in Mumbai, India. She founded Filament Pictures in 2005, a production house which creates socially relevant feature length documentaries. She was one of the 18 filmmakers selected from the Middle East and Asia for the Global Media Makers Fellowship 2019-20. The fellowship is offered by the US State Department and Film Independent. Her documentary, Rat Race (2011) was the winner of the Mipdoc Co-Production Challenge at Cannes (France). Miriam has also won the Asian Television Awards for Best Social Documentary (2007) and the UK Environment Film Fellowship (2008).
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