Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
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.
Rachel Elizabeth Lloyd is a British anti-trafficking advocate, author and the founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services. She is known for her work on the issue of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking and has been a leader in helping shift the perception of trafficked girls from criminals to victims and now to survivors and leaders. She immigrated to the US in 1997 and began working to end domestic sex trafficking, primarily focusing on addressing the commercial sexual exploitation of children and young women. In 1998, she established the Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, which is based in Harlem, New York.
Annie Lobert is an American former call girl and sex industry worker, who founded the international Christian ministry Hookers for Jesus. In 2010, she produced and starred in a three-part documentary on the organization, Hookers: Saved on the Strip, which was broadcast nationwide on cable television's Investigation Discovery.
Ruchira Gupta is a journalist and activist. She is the founder of Apne Aap, a non-governmental organisation that works for women's rights and the eradication of sex trafficking.
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.
The Whistleblower is a 2010 Canadian biographical drama film directed by Larysa Kondracki and starring Rachel Weisz. Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan wrote the screenplay, which was inspired by the story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska police officer who was recruited as a United Nations peacekeeper for DynCorp International in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1999. While there, she discovered a Bosnian sex trafficking ring serving and facilitated by DynCorp employees, with international peacekeepers looking the other way. Bolkovac was fired and forced out of the country after attempting to shut down the ring. She took the story to BBC News in the UK and won a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against DynCorp.
Kathleen Man Gyllenhaal is an American filmmaker from Hawaii.
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.
Operation Stormy Nights was an early major anti-human-trafficking operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Operations took place in Oklahoma and brought to light organized crime networks trafficking female minors along United States Numbered Highways, where the girls were forced into prostitution to service truck drivers.
Nadia Murad Basee Taha is an Iraqi-born Yazidi human rights activist based in Germany. In 2014, as part of the Yazidi genocide by the Islamic State, she was abducted from her hometown of Kocho in Iraq and much of her community was massacred. After losing most of her family, Murad was held as an Islamic State sex slave for three months, alongside thousands of other Yazidi women and girls.
Cassie Jaye is an American film director, best known for directing the 2016 documentary film The Red Pill about the men's rights movement.
Kimberly S. Corban is a rape survivor and crime victim advocate. She is notable for her victim advocacy speeches, a nationally televised question at CNN's 'Guns in America' Town hall hosted by Anderson Cooper with former president Barack Obama to discuss the Second Amendment and her 2018 TEDx Talk, 'How my sexual assault was hijacked by politicians and lobbies'.
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.
California's Forgotten Children is an American feature documentary directed by Melody C. Miller. Winning Best Documentary at the 2018 Soho International Film Festival, 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. The film features stories from Time 100 Most Influential People Withelma "T" Ortiz Walker Pettigrew, attorney Carissa Phelps, academic scholar Minh Dang, activist Leah Albright-Byrd, therapist Nikolaos Al-Khadra, and educator Rachel Thomas, M. Ed.
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).
Surviving Sex Trafficking is a 2022 American documentary film directed by Sadhvi Siddhali Shree and produced by the team of monks at Siddhayatan Tirth.
Minh Dang is a Vietnamese-American independent consultant, speaker, and advocate on matters of human trafficking and social justice. She is the executive director and Cofounder of Survivor Alliance and was the executive director for Don't Sell Bodies, an anti-human trafficking organization founded by Jada Pinkett Smith. Dang is most known for speaking about her personal experience dealing with child abuse and her advocacy against human trafficking. Dang helped launch the U.S. Senate Caucus to End Human Trafficking with Senators Rob Portman and Richard Blumenthal. Dang received the UC Berkeley Chancellor's Award for Public Service in 2011, the Mark Bingham Award for Excellence in Achievement in 2013, and she was one of fifteen Asian American/Pacific Islander women recognized at the White House as a Champion of Change in 2013. She was also appointed by President Obama to serve on the U.S. Advisory Council to End Human Trafficking.
