Taken Displays the Gritty World of Human Trafficking

The recent film, Taken, is an action-packed thriller about a father, played by Liam Neeson, (who coincidentally is the voice of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia). Neeson desperately attempts to save his abducted daughter from the underground world of human trafficking. In the film, Neeson’s daughter Kim, played by Maggie Grace, travels to Paris for a holiday with her friend. Upon arriving in the airport, the girls are targeted by sex traders and later kidnapped. Unfortunately for the sex traders, Kim’s father is an ex-government agent with all the skills necessary to track down the predators and make them pay for their crimes.

Despite the Hollywood ending—most girls are not the daughters of former secret agents and they are not rescued by daddy within 48 hours of being caught up in the dark world of human trafficking—Taken did accurately depict many details of this evil business.

Human traffickers often target young women and girls who are naïve, ignorant, and/or trusting. In Taken, a sex trader earns the girls trust in the form of an attractive and friendly young man who strikes up a conversation with the girls and then later asks them if they would like to go to a party later on, securing their address. Traffickers routinely use a charming, friendly face to lie to girls and promise them great opportunities such as parties, work opportunities, or family reunions. These of course are all lies to con girls into going with them to be later forced into the sex trade.

Taken also correctly depicts the traders forcibly drugging up the abducted girls. This does two things. First, it drastically lowers their coherence making it much easier for traders to use them as prostitutes and in brothels. Second, it builds up a drug dependency that the traders use to keep the girls in the brothel. The girls will become so desperate for the drugs, that they will do anything to get them, including any sexual desires of paying “clients”.

The sad reality is that there are more slaves in the world today than ever before in the history of mankind. Human trafficking is the second largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world (drugs being the first). Total annual revenue for trafficking in persons is estimated to be between $5 billion and $9 billion. Victims experience a loss of freedom and exploitation at the hands of the traffickers who buy and sell them in pursuit of profit. They are incarcerated in brothels that are nothing but prisons. Human trafficking is very much a modern-day slavery.

The U.S. State Department estimates that one million children are exploited each year in the global commercial sex trade.* These statistics are both staggering and tragic and the church can no longer stand idly by as millions of children and women are being abducted and abused for profit off sexual pleasures.

To combat this growing industry, CIY Missions has partnered with an organization called Rapha House to take short-term missions trips to Cambodia to help keep young girls out of the slave trade for the past two years. The Hebrew word for healing is Rapha, which is exactly what the girls at Rapha House receive. One of the tragic realities of human trafficking is that even if girls are rescued from the sex trade, they will often find themselves back in it again after a few months. This is because they have no other practical skills or trades with which they can earn a living. Rapha House provides a safe haven to harbor the girls and teach them valuable skills to use for the rest of their lives so they can make a living without resorting to prostitution. Instead of being a statistic, each girl is seen as an individual with hopes and dreams and potential to make a huge impact in the world. Tragedy plays a part in each girl’s story, but that’s not where the story ends. These precious girls are finding hope in place of heartbreak, healing in place of pain, and freedom in place of captivity.

Since January 2008, we have taken five teams to Cambodia to partner alongside Rapha House. Each group of students and adults is confronted with the harsh reality of human trafficking and the pain these girls have suffered. Many of these girls have lost their childhood. Teams are engaged in teaching English, VBS, sewing classes, Bible lessons, singing, games, and assisting in other vocational training classes, but the most important thing is showing the love of Jesus Christ.

As affluent, suburban living Americans, it’s easy to forget that the rest of the world doesn’t have many of the freedoms we take for granted. As Christians, we need to be disturbed about the issue of human trafficking and the sexual trends of our culture and the culture of the world. It is an injustice of the church to turn a blind eye to the helpless children being exploited, even if it is in another country. We have to be advocates against human trafficking—educating others and praying that the oppressed will be set free. Even more, we need to be the hands that help break the chains of injustice.

Hopefully, with the recent success of Taken at the box office, people will become more aware of the very real problems in the world regarding human trafficking and the millions of women and children being forced in the industry. Worldwide, moral standards have deteriorated to an all time low and the by-product is a sexually-charged society seeking pleasure through pornography, internet, rape, incest, and the sexual exploitation of children—a culture reduced to evil means in pursuit of sexual pleasure. Let’s pray that in the end, pain and injustice will not have the final say. Rather, hope, freedom, and love will have the final say.

*U.S. Department of State, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, “The Facts about Child Sex Tourism.”