By Joe Bendel. Istanbul might be a beautiful city, but the women living in the Aksaray neighborhood would not know. That is because it is a red light district and most of the prostitutes there are slaves, confined to seedy sex clubs and prison-like quarters. Crusading photojournalist Mimi Chakarova tells the stories of the voiceless women trafficked into sexual slavery in The Price of Sex, which screens during the 2011 Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
There is no question, sex trafficking is a problem in Western Europe and the Americas. However, when Chakarova wanted to investigate ground zero for sex slavery, she took her hidden cameras to Istanbul’s Aksaray and Dubai – two cities which obviously have absolutely nothing in common, right?
Chakarova briefly acknowledges the hypocrisy of Muslim communities rather openly indulging in the fruits of sex slavery. Evidently in Turkey, pre-marital sex is illegal but prostitution is not. There would seem to be an inherent contradiction there, but the crooked cops doggedly look the other way. While conditions might be slightly better in go-go Dubai, the fundamental realities remain the same. Demand for Eastern European women is also quite high in both “markets,” reflecting a “Natasha” fetish amongst the clientele. Indeed, the frequency with which Eastern European women are targeted by trafficking rings hit close to home for the naturalized Bulgarian-American Chakarova.
While Chakarova does not serve the material particularly well when injecting her own relatively undramatic family history into the film, her intrepid undercover work posing as an Eastern European prostitute in Aksaray earns her a pass. She also scores serious documentary filmmaking street cred for her on-camera interview with two Aksaray brothel customers, who also happened to be cops. Having her cameras stolen from her Dubai hotel room pretty much represents the hat-trick for the filmmaker.
Still, Chakarova is far more effective exposing the brutality and corruption of the trafficking system than analyzing its root causes. She clearly blames the fall of Communism for leaving Eastern European women vulnerable to traffickers’ false promises. Yet, Moldova and particularly Belarus, two of the prime suppliers of enslaved women, are hardly bastions of capitalism and individual rights—quite the opposite, in fact.
There is nothing sexy about Price, but what it documents is obscene. Though addressing painful subjects, Chakarova is a sensitive yet probing interviewer. She also wisely resists falling back on feminist “man-bashing,” trenchantly pointing out the recruiters are nearly always women. It is a worthy documentary, which actually addresses human rights, making it one of a handful of recommended selections at this year’s HRWFF. Price screens this coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (6/24-6/25) at the Walter Reade Theater.
Posted on June 23rd, 2011 at 4:09pm.
Frontline, on PBS, produced a show on this topic in 2006. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/slaves/) Why isn’t this topic the en vogue topic amongst the elitist left wing liberals of Hollywood, where fighting for the impoverished and those without a voice is the fight-of-fights for them? Thanks to LFM for picking up this movie and reviewing the issue. It is hard having seen the Frontline episode and not be moved by this topic. I look forward to seeing “The Price of Sex” at some point.
Thanks for the comment, Dan. This is why we value Joe Bendel so much here.
Many of the women in the porn industry are from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Ditto for fashion modeling, and prostitution in the EU and many emerging markets in the Middle East and Asia. I am not making a comparison between the fashion industry and prostitution, but there is an abundance of beautiful women in Eastern Europe (a Russian politician once said that his country had a surplus of beautiful women).
I happen to reside in one of the so called capitals of human trafficking in Eastern Europe. I have met women whom worked in Turkey and Dubai, and in Asia. I say worked, because the women knew what they are going to be doing when they got to Istanbul, etc.Strip Clubs and prostitution are what they signed up for.
Ten years ago, it was different. Women, including many underage girls, were tricked with promises of restaurant jobs, some kidnapped, and some were beaten & murdered at the hands of organizations that controlled the trafficking. Times have changed. There is not a village girl from Eastern Europe who does not know the details, and the organizations that recruit cannot afford to scare off the current crop. Everyone is wired now. This does not mean there are not organizations-often run by women-whom still play the old game in the flesh trade, like keeping passports and extorting money. However, with the global economic crisis hitting harder in this region, they do not need to do much to get women to work.
While it is true that some today are mistreated, abused, even drugged and raped, the majority are not and view the work as a better alternative than starving in Eastern Europe. While I have not seen this documentary, I have seen others-including the Frontline one, and based upon my experience, it was more of a political statement than an objective study of trafficking.
That’s a great review, Joe. I’m glad you criticized the film based on its examination of the root causes of sex slavery and Islam.
I’d like to take a stab at this part: “Chakarova briefly acknowledges the hypocrisy of Muslim communities rather openly indulging in the fruits of sex slavery. Evidently in Turkey, pre-marital sex is illegal but prostitution is not. There would seem to be an inherent contradiction there, but the crooked cops doggedly look the other way.”
From my knowledge, there really isn’t a contradiction there at all. Slavery is a pillar of Islam (Sura 9:29), so basically prostitutes have their purpose in the structure (pre-marital sex, and prostitution are completely different). If an Islamic woman is accused of such crimes, then she is in serious trouble.
It seems like the filmmaker just couldn’t consider that slavery is an institutional element in Islam. My friend traveled to UAE many times, and he said the sex slave trade is out in the open. A book I read last year that touched on this is called “Islam’s Black Slaves” — a truly fascinating read.