While traveling to the Philippines in 2001, filmmaker Libby Spears gained first hand knowledge of the horrific practice of trafficking human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation. She examined a little deeper, and discovered that most of these victims were young children.
Facing death threats to be “knocked off” for only $10, Libby went undercover to infiltrate brothels in South Korea and Thailand. She held first-hand interviews with victims, their pimps, and their abusers. She mapped the trafficking routes of the sex tourism industry, and charted the commerce fueled by the purchase and sale of minors — she was disheartened to find that virtually the entire globe was involved and affected by this growing industry.
“Men Fly into Atlanta, Georgia From All Over The Us To Have Sex With Children They Have Purchased Online. In A Small, Affluent, Local Golf Community, The Elementary School Superintendent And Local Bookstore Clerk Are Arrested On The Same Day In A Sting Operation By Law Enforcement Officials Seeking Sex Predators Of Children Via The Internet.”—Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionWhat she was astonished to find, however, was the involvement of the United States and the degree to which Americans were influencing the global demand and growth of the sex trafficking industry.
When she started filming, she mistakenly believed that sex trafficking was primarily an international occurrence in countries like Philippines and Cambodia. But a meeting with Ernie Allen, President of the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children, confirmed to Libby what her research was beginning to uncover: that the trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation is every bit as real in North America.
This is where Playground begins.
Playground: the film
The sexual exploitation of children is a problem that we tend to relegate to back-alley brothels in developing countries, the province of a particularly inhuman, and invariably foreign, criminal element. Such is the initial premise of Libby Spears’ sensitive investigation into the topic. But she quickly concludes that very little thrives on this planet without American capital, and the commercial child sex industry is certainly thriving. Spears intelligently traces the epidemic to its disparate, and decidedly domestic, roots — among them the way children are educated about sex, and the problem of raising awareness about a crime that inherently cannot be shown.Her cultural observations are couched in an ongoing mystery story: the search for Michelle, an American girl lost to the underbelly of childhood sexual exploitation who has yet to resurface a decade later.
Executive produced by George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Steven Soderbergh, and punctuated with poignant animation by Japanese pop artist Yoshitomo Nara, Playground illuminates a sinister industry of unrecognized pervasiveness. Spears has crafted a comprehensive revelation of an unknown epidemic, essential viewing for any parent or engaged citizen.
This guest post was authored by Libby Spears, director, producer and writer.
In 2010, I released a documentary called PLAYGROUND, which tells the heartbreaking story of commercial sexual exploitation in North America, a result of systems that fail children and leave them vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation.
Beneath that failure lies a profound lack of awareness that keeps resources and funding from reaching children who need it most. PLAYGROUND issues an urgent call to action, pressing American audiences to first acknowledge the prevalence of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) in our own country and then to act.
PLAYGROUND is about child sex trade in America, but it could just as easily be about other “developed” countries, included the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia where common stereotypes about the sex trade conjure up images of far off brothels that have little to do with our own schools and neighborhoods. The stereotypes act as a powerful force and as an unconscious bias that can mean we overlook victims as parents, teachers and friends or fail to recognize signs of exploitation as doctors, police officers and social workers.
This blog entry will share how we have used PLAYGROUND to bring start conversations, bring change in training and policy, raise public awareness and build capacity. One recent step in the journey has been the development of a curriculum for young people in schools which is further described below.
Training and Policy Change
Given the imperative for building a foundation of awareness, we first utilized PLAYGROUND as a training tool for first responders - FBI, law enforcement, pediatricians, social workers and others who worked in the field of child welfare. We then focused our attention to policy change. Many of the laws in the United States were still not sufficiently protecting the victims as children as young as 12 were being charged with prostitution.Public Awareness
We then expanded our reach to colleges and community members as part of the first wave in the current North American movement to end all forms of child sexual exploitation. Screenings across the country contributed to a shift in thinking about the profile of a “typical” victim and continue to illuminate the complexity of response systems that need to be in place for survivors. National attention has finally begun to pivot and some American states are decriminalizing children who have been commercially exploited and previously arrested as “prostitutes” but much more needs to be done. While recent national legislation in the U.S has unlocked funding and resources for victims of CSEC, we remain committed to building a strong foundation of public awareness.Youth Education
Our public engagement has now become more focused as we recognize that those on the true front lines of CSEC are children. Our best defense is to empower young people to identify signs of exploitation and to give them the language and framework within which to understand the growing trends of CSEC. Nest Foundation, the organization I founded to carry on the work of PLAYGROUND has recently developed a high school curriculum, which was first piloted in Portland, Oregon in December 2014 for 300 students.The curriculum, which uses clips from PLAYGROUND and current events, not only teaches students about the scope and prevalence of CSEC but also connects it to larger social and cultural paradigms in which the exploitation of children thrives, including new digital platforms and behaviors, stereotypes in media and advertising, and a breakdown in bystander behavior. The curriculum culminates in an awareness and advocacy project, encouraging students’ civic engagement in their own communities.
Students are taught to deconstruct language that is widely used to mis-characterize victims (“prostitutes”, “runaways” etc.), an exercise that gives way to meaningful conversations about skewed social and political responses to CSEC. Because CSEC only thrives in a context that glorifies distorted images of sexuality, our lessons also demonstrate the ways in which hetero-normative advertising contributes to unhealthy ideals of sex and sexuality. In the US, there are few obstacles to advertisers who show very young girls dressed in age inappropriate ways that send out subtle messages of sexual availability. Boys too receive confusing messages about what should be considered desirable. Through our curriculum, we unpack the hidden and not so subtle messages in music videos, advertising and other media, often giving students the language to describe what they’ve already been feeling and form questions they didn’t have the media literacy to ask.
Over the next two years, we will pilot and evaluate the curriculum in several cities across the United States included Portland, Austin, Dallas, New York and Los Angeles before offering it for wider distribution. In each city, we form alliances with local experts, organizations and ensure that resources are available for students who may want to access them or are inspired to support them. Our ultimate goal is to foster youth civic engagement so that students feel emboldened to make changes in their own lives, even if it’s in the language they use, and empowered to act as advocates within their schools and communities. To that end, our first curriculum cohort participated in our inaugural Nest Student-Led Forum that brought students and policymakers together in May 2015 in Portland, OR for a candid conversation about local actions to address commercial sexual exploitation. We’re happy to report that one of the posters a student created as part of his curriculum capstone awareness project was adopted by the Portland school system!
Capacity Building
An important element of our education model is that it incorporates capacity building for key adults that surround our students. CSEC experts train teachers, enabling a sustained and knowledgeable presence in the classroom beyond the curriculum. An expert facilitator also co-teaches the curriculum with school teachers creating a partnership that blends classroom management with high capacity to handle sensitive material. Over the next two years, we are establishing partnerships with other agencies who have resources and curricula to train educators, administrators, school counsellors and nurses and our coordinated approach will ensure that all adults who come in regular contact with students have the capacity to respond and support them.
The key to success has rested on building relationships with dedicated teachers and trusting students. Each time we’ve gone into a classroom with material that we fear may be “too intense” or confronting, the students we teach have met us with maturity, insight and ideas for supporting peers, family members and friends — and for teaching younger students. It’s this response that provides us with fuel to continue and that gives life to the data we’re collecting that proves we’re right where we need to be: in the classroom.
Last year, I had the honour of visiting Australia and screening PLAYGROUND in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. During the panel discussions that followed each screening, I learned that there are many parallels between Australia and the US when it comes to CSEC. I spoke with advocates, service providers and members of various child protection and law enforcement agencies who are working tirelessly to address CSEC in Australia public awareness remains low, just as it was when I began filming.
As we look ahead at our common mandate to protect our children there is much that the United States and Australia can learn from each other. I believe that youth education is a paramount tool in preventing CSEC before it starts.
About Nest Foundation:
Nest’s mission is to comprehensively advance the movement to end all forms of child sexual exploitation, including sex trafficking, starting in the United States. Using the documentary film, PLAYGROUND, Nest educates youth, engages the public, and supports victims of exploitation and trafficking with emergency aid.
More information at: nestfoundation.org
Libby Spears - Member of ‘150 Women Who Shake the World’ in Australia with a powerful message
American documentary-maker and Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) expert Libby Spears arrives in Australia today with a powerful message.
“Commercial exploitation of children is not just a third world problem.
“The USA has a thriving child sex industry. The same is true of Australia,” she says.
“Nations like America and Australia must deal with the problem in their own backyard if they are to hold others accountable on an international level.”
The focus of Libby’s visit is the Australian premiere of her film ‘Playground: The Child Sex Trade in America’, which will be screened in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Executive produced by George Clooney and Abigail Disney, the film is critically acclaimed and has been screened around the world, including many times at the US Congress.
‘Playground’ takes a sensitive look at the underground epidemic of young children being forced into prostitution in USA, where some 100,000 children are trafficked each year, and where more than 300,000 are ‘at risk’.
Libby has also spearheaded several Congressional hearings, and her advocacy work has helped shape legislation to better protect young victims of sexual exploitation in the USA.
Libby Spears is also the founder and Executive Director of NEST Foundation and the new community movement, Campaign 13, which advocates for an intelligent, holistic and urgent response to sex trafficking of minors in America.
CHEAPER TO SELL KIDS, THAN DRUGS
“Sadly, the commercial sex trade of children has increased because it is now more profitable and less risky to sell kids, than drugs,” she says.“Demand is high because sales can be executed anonymously over the Internet.”
The US Department of Justice has said that Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children is the world’s fastest growing form of organised crime.
“We also know that in child pornography, of the 5.9 million pornographic images of children online that have been reported, only 874 children have been identified,” says Libby.
AUSTRALIA IS NOT IMMUNE
“I am here with a message that Australia is not immune to this.“Sex trafficking in Australia remains severely under-reported and improperly understood.
“It is happening in your neighborhoods, as it ours, and it’s time we put more focus on it, upskill and empower our community to deal with it.”
A national online survey completed by the Australian Institute of Criminology found that 75% of respondents believed they would not be able to identify a trafficked person.
Overall, the survey revealed a high level of confusion regarding the definition and scope of the human trafficking issue facing the Australian community.
“People often associate the word ‘trafficking’ with something that happens overseas, or an act that involves moving people across borders. We need to understand that trafficking is any form of commercial sex act where the child is induced by force, fraud or coercion.”
RESEARCH IS BADLY NEEDED
Australia is trailing the rest of the western world when it comes to research and awareness regarding the sexual exploitation of children.The last national inquiry was conducted in 1998 and published in ‘Youth for Sale’ by ChildWise, which found anecdotal evidence of more than 3000 cases of underage commercial sexual activity.
“We know that commercial sex exploitation of children has sky-rocketed in the past decade, so these figures would be significantly higher now in Australia,” says Libby.
In a report by the Australian Government ‘Tomorrow’s Children’ in 2000, it said that: “given the clandestine nature of the activity it is unlikely that Australia will ever truly have available, reliable national data relating to the prostitution of children and young people.
Alongside Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton, Libby Spears was recently named one of the ‘150 Women Who Shake the World’ by NewsWeek Magazine. Libby has more than 15 years’ experience producing and directing critically acclaimed films that can be seen in more than 100 countries around the world.
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