Educational Media Reviews Online

This disturbing and beautifully made documentary is an expose about how Eastern European women have been caught in the trap of sexual slavery. It opens with a prostitute telling Mimi Chakarova, the filmmaker, that the first words she learned in English were, “How much?” and “With or without condom?” This woman was offered a job as a waitress for $500 a month in Dubai, but she, like so many women seeking legitimate employment, was tricked into prostitution.

Chakarova, a photojournalist who grew up in Bulgaria and moved to America twenty years ago, connects the explosion of sexual slavery with the fall of Communism. Before the fall of Communism in 1990, everyone in most Eastern European countries “was equally poor but felt safe.” Her native country, Bulgaria, had the highest employment of women in the world. After the fall, however, most women lost their jobs. The economy became unstable and many people left the country in search of work.

Chakarova has been investigating the issue for ten years and has taken her camera from Eastern Europe to the West to the Middle East, from sex clubs to strip clubs to the streets. At one point her hotel room is ransacked by someone who’s onto her project, but luckily she has hidden the footage. Chakarova interviews women as well as pimps and clients. She wonders, “How could so many women [nearly a million, she later says, though the actual number is probably much higher] fall victim to this? Why were and are so many women silent? Trafficked women have been nameless and faceless; fear of retaliation has kept them silent.” Chakarova says that these women have, to use a Bulgarian expression “entered the mouth of the wolf.” Some Nigerian hookers who walk the streets do so because they believe they are the victims of voodoo curses.

After reporting on the issue for seven years, Chakarova is finally granted an interview with a law enforcement officer. She poses as a prostitute to get one interview; she rides with a cop in Athens; she learns that cops are bribed. Prostitution is legal in Turkey where the prevalent religion, Muslim, prohibits sex before marriage. In Dubai, where prostitution is not hidden and is advertised at fancy hotels, men outnumber women three to one. There, the majority of women work as independent agents. Some women, even after paying off debts to their pimps, think prostitution is the only way, or the only lucrative way, to make a living.

Chakarova goes into the offices of La Strada Moldova, an NGO that offers outreach via a hotline to women who want out of sexual slavery. It’s trying to “save lives, one life at a time.” Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe, has become infamous for Europe’s biggest trafficking. La Strada “is a part of the international network of Prevention of Trafficking in Women in Central and Eastern Europe that includes nine organizations in nine countries.”

The haunting, exotic, and evocative music mitigates the harshness of the stories told in the film. Chakarova’s narration is compelling and concise. And various languages, including Russian, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Romanian are expertly translated into English subtitles. Chakarova’s bravura film exposes the horrors of sexual slavery by portraying the stories of individuals trapped by it, and her website, priceofsex.org, provides additional information about one of the most exigent human rights issues of our time.

Awards

• Nestor Almendros Award for Courage in Filmmaking