Normally I don’t write about B-level, straight-to-video melodramas or Lifetime TV movies like this one for my film category. Usually preferring to write about more substantive productions, I can nevertheless watch just about anything once. This particular story was one of many available on Amazon Prime – which caught my attention because of the very serious subject matter. Human trafficking has always existed to one tragic degree or another throughout history – but in recent years has become something of an obsession in the American media. Supposedly, it has become a crisis of alarming proportions that isn’t being addressed effectively.
According to the fast-paced thriller Stolen From The Suburbs human trafficking doesn’t just happen to the poor and disadvantaged from the slums or those living in parts of the world that experience significant social upheaval. The victims of trafficking can be anyone, but especially attractive female teens and young adults living in prosperous, normally “safe” suburbs are the prime targets in Stolen. The story begins with Katharine (Cynthia Watros) a single mother and her 16-year-old daughter Emma (Sydney Sweeney) who recently moved from Wisconsin to Southern California.
Soon enough, Emma chafes under and rebels against what she perceives to be Katharine’s overprotectiveness although they live in a new, unfamiliar area. Katharine also doesn’t approve of Emma’s friend Courtney (Tetona Jackson) once she spies the girls meeting up with men at a local shopping center who don’t look like fellow high school students. Katharine suspects that something is afoot but doesn’t conceive of what will soon happen next. In a precursor of things to come Katharine gets berated by activist Anna (Brooke Nevin) when she gets caught trying to remove a missing persons notice from a utility pole in the “safe” neighborhood she’s just moved into.
As it turns out, Emma and Courtney are both abducted from the shopping center by the two handsome young men who pretend to be romantically interested in them – but in actuality are procurers of underage women to serve the perverts for the illicit sex trade. Much of this exploitation story concerns the difficulty of convincing law enforcement to treat missing persons cases as dire, urgent situations. In both reel and real life the police typically assume that teens are temporary runaways acting out against their parents after a family spat. Law enforcement may also believe (especially as portrayed in Stolen) that teens being snatched by sex traffickers never to be seen again just doesn’t register as a likely, widespread event.
Indeed, the plot and overall tone of Stolen is hysterical and far-fetched. Katharine ends up collaborating with the same local activist who was angry with her during the chance encounter on the street for attempting to remove the missing person poster. They gallantly attempt to rescue Emma and Courtney from the evil Milena (Olivia D’ Abo) of vaguely East European origin and head of the cartel which has the two girls in its clutches. Of course, the story moves rapidly in typical B-level thriller fashion with unlikely heroics committed by ordinary people caught up in implausible situations.
After all, the story is absorbing for some tastes – (so I don’t want to be too much of a spoiler) but a waste of time for others. In any case, for those of us that are suspicious of the news media along with websites that purport to be experts on issues like this, we still wonder what the facts are. For instance, the Deliver Fund Organization quotes sources which suggest that between 15,000 and 50,000 women and children are forced into the sex trade each year in the United States alone. The site also claimed that the Department Of Health & Human Services released a study claiming that the number of trafficking victims runs as high as 325,000 per year. Other sources claim at least 100,000 of such victims in this country. The numbers vary widely.
Granted, the shadowy, international nature of human trafficking and its loathsome operators (whether it’s the sex slave trade or forced labor markets) are difficult to hunt down and prosecute. The US Department Of State claims that over 2,000,000 children are victims of the illicit sex trade around the world. Other organizations such as the International Labor Organization (ILO) believe that 21,000,000 people are trafficking victims – and that only drug and arms trafficking are worse crimes worldwide. While these figures are hard to quantify, it also raises the question as to how profitable human trafficking actually is. These numbers also vary considerably.
According to Wikipedia human trafficking for sexual exploitation purposes is worth in the range of 99 billion dollars – but doesn’t specify or cite from a reliable source exactly what this means. I’d it referring to an annual figure? A five year period? Within a decade? It’s all quite unclear to say the least. It’s quite beyond the scope of Stolen From The Suburbs to delve into these further questions – which also says nothing about where all the money goes. No doubt there is a great deal of “laundering” going on so these criminals (much of it organized crime) try and cover their tracks.
Also important to consider, how much of this dirty money ends up backing “legitimate” businesses and interests? Without a doubt there are definitively more questions raised about human trafficking and forced sexual exploitation than Stolen From The Suburbs could possibly answer.
