Movie Reveals Growing Threat To World Wanderers
Movie “Taken” portrays ugly traveler threat
BY PHILL FELTHAM
Wandering the world solo can be a scary venture, particularly if you’re a female wanderer. The film “Taken,” now playing in the theatres, really gives an accurate portrayal.
Liam Neeson stars in the drama that seems to be aimed for teenagers and tweeners about a retired spy trying to spend time with his estranged daughter. Neeson’s character, having dealt with the scum of the world, knows and hears things that most people could never imagine. This is one reason why he gets paranoid when his daughter and her friend, both 17, plan to backpack Europe.
This fact is particularly important to the movie because it reflects the bubble perspective: the belief that the rest of the world is as safe as home and that no real dangers exist. Obviously in the movie they do. Of course, when the girls get to Europe something horrible happens.
At the airport, the two girls are encountered by a friendly French local by the name of “Peter.” He shares a taxi with the girls to their residence. However, after Peter finds out where they’re staying, he calls in the location to his accomplices who soon come by and abduct the two girls.
The movie proceeds to get even more disturbing when we find out what happens to the girls. They are abused, drugged up and then sold to the highest bidder as prostitutes.
“People trafficking has reached epidemic proportions over the past decade, with a global annual market of about $42.5 billion,” the Council of Europe states. Male and female trafficking victims are typically recruited using coercion, deception, fraud, the abuse of power, or outright abduction. Threats, violence, and economic leverage such as debt bondage can often compel a victim to consent to exploitation that involves prostitution, forced labor or services.
Although there is some discrepancy in the actual collected data, one credible source, the United States Department of State, estimates that “600,000 to 820,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 70 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also illustrates that the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation.”
While the movie takes place in Europe, reports of human trafficking have occurred all over the world. According to Radio Free Europe, as many as 70 percent of women between the ages of 18 and 30 would like to leave Russia to work abroad. Because visa restrictions make it almost impossible for young women to obtain legal working status overseas, many women buy visas from so-called “employment” services who force them into prostitution and slavery once they cross the border.
What’s alarming is that, according to The Globe and Mail, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (not to be confused with the Mormon Church) has been implicated in the trafficking of underage women across state and international boundaries in the U.S. and Canada. The motivation for this crime is mostly for polygamous practices or plural marriage.
WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HUMAN TRAFFICKING?
Governments around the globe are actively trying to prevent human trafficking. Here are a few sources of information that might be of some help:
The Canadian Department of Justice
http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/fs-sv/tp/faq.html
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/
Any Canadian traveling abroad should register with the Canadian Foreign Affairs before departing from the country. That way your location can be traced if anything happens. iT!
Phill Feltham is the publisher of The Weekly Wanderer and Senior Editor of Maximum Fitness magazine. He’s travelled to eight countries and lived overseas for two years.
