Observer Staff Members critique the movie “Trade” now in theaters.

By KEOSHA JOHNSON & ADINA YOUNG
Observer Staff
OCT. 4, 2007

“Trade” is a Hollywood-ized movie about an underreported issue: humans bought and sold for labor or sex, better known as human trafficking. Without giving too much away, 13 year-old Adriana is kidnapped along with other women and a young boy. The captors smuggle everyone into the U.S. to be auctioned off, but not before Adriana’s brother follows the kidnappers, meeting a New Jersey police officer in the process. Together they form a bond while strategizing how to get Adriana back.

Although there isn’t much nudity in the film, the violent rape scenes got this movie an “R” rating. “Trade” is a jarring and suspenseful look at human trafficking, and has received poor ratings from many movie critics. But we give it a B+. Although drastically unrealistic, the movie brings to light an important issue that happens in every country, including the U.S.

About 800,000 people, mostly women and children, are trafficked across national borders every year, according to the U.S. State Department. This number does not include those people who are trafficked within their own countries.

The State Department says that some may be coerced by false promises of job opportunities and others may be tricked into marriages with people in foreign countries.

In “Trade,” this is exactly what happened to Veronica, a Polish single mother who came to the U.S. with the hope of making an honest living. Veronica later finds her own way to cope with her fate as a sex slave.

We would recommend “Trade” to anyone who has a hankering for an edge-of-your-seat movie, and wants to learn about a topic that is unfortunately a reality for many.