Essential Human Trafficking Movies

Sex work is legal in some countries, but in many places, it’s not. Prudishness is generally the reason for that. However, even if you travel to a place where sex work is legal, you don’t necessarily know whether the individual you’re hiring is doing the job voluntarily.

Human trafficking is widespread, both in America and worldwide. It’s a horrific practice and robs individuals of their most basic human rights. Some of those trafficked start doing sex work at a very young age, and they give up hope of ever finding a better life, particularly if it’s all they know.

Several movies deal with this difficult subject matter. They can be hard to watch sometimes, but it’s better to know about these sorts of things happening in the world than to turn a blind eye and pretend it isn’t happening.

In this article, we’ll cover a few of the more compelling human trafficking movies you’re likely to find.

The Taken Trilogy

Some experts say that there are about 20-40 million humans in modern slavery right now. Those who buy and sell them usually do so for sex, but sometimes wealthy individuals use them as servants or for other purposes.

The Taken movies are possibly some of the best-known human trafficking films. They star Liam Neeson, a man with a “particular set of skills.” When a sex trafficking ring kidnaps his daughter during her European vacation, it kicks off ninety minutes of car chases, gunfights, and explosions.

The two later installments continue the story, with some of the slain gangsters’ relatives seeking revenge against Neeson for his vigilantism. Probably the original is the best entry, but all three are big-budget, stylized thrills that are entertaining in a mindless sort of way.

It’s debatable whether this is what human trafficking really resembles. These sorts of features are more about killing a couple of hours than a profound exploration of trafficking and its all-too-real victims.

Trade

Trade is a 2007 film that Roland Emmerich produced. American audiences know Emmerich from his larger-than-life blockbusters such as “Independence Day” and “2012.”

Starring Kevin Kline, it’s based on the Peter Landesman article “The Girls Next Door.” It has a somewhat more serious feel than the Taken movies, and the Sundance Film Festival screened it to a favorable reception.

The action begins in Mexico City, where traffickers grab 13-year-old Adriana off the street. They also abduct Veronica, a young Polish woman who’s vacationing in the city. Adriana and Veronica endure various torments both in Mexico and then later in America.

This is a more thoughtful and restrained film than Taken, but it still ends in rather sensationalistic fashion. However, it’s hard to stay away from that sort of thing if you want a movie to have universal appeal, even when it’s dealing with such serious subject matter.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Played with Fire is the second of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie series, based on novels by the late Stieg Larsson. They follow Lisbeth Salander, a genius computer hacker, and all-around social misfit. 

Human trafficking becomes a subplot when Dag Svensson, a journalist, writes a prostitution expose. His girlfriend, Mia Bergman, has also chosen human trafficking as her doctoral thesis. Dag exposes individuals running a Swedish human trafficking ring, and Salander’s sometime-lover Mikhael Blomkvist subsequently finds both Dag and Mia murdered in their apartment.

Much like theTaken movies, this is a film where human trafficking drives the plot, but, other than moving the story forward, there’s a little serious exploration of the societal impact that it has. This seems common with Hollywood fare dealing with this topic. Directors seem eager to explore trafficking’s seedier aspects but don’t spend much time dissecting why or how it happens.

CONCLUSION

Frankly, if you want to know more about human trafficking without having to worry about a knife fight or a car chase breaking out, you’d probably do better checking out a documentary on the subject. Born in Brothels is one of the better ones. It’s a 2004 film that focuses on Calcutta’s Red-Light District.  

Tricked: The Documentary is another excellent one. It’s a character-driven film that looks at the evolving sex trafficking landscape from several different perspectives.

Human trafficking is a disturbing concept, but it happens, and probably not enough people talk about it. At the very least, even the more exploitative movies that feature it expand human awareness of the subject, and that, at least, is a good thing.