USA: International cast of sex trafficking movie "Trade," talk to Reuters about their gritty film

The international cast of "Trade," including Oscar winner Kevin Kline, Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo and Polish actress Alicja Bachleda talk to Reuters about their gritty film, which looks at the sex trafficking epidemic in the U.S. "Trade," a powerful drama about sex trafficking highlights the global epidemic and takes a gritty look at how girls are forced into prostitution and child slave labor. The film was screened at the United Nations on Wednesday (September 29), and Roadside Attractions, the film's distributor, will donate five percent of the proceeds during the first few months in release to the Vienna-based Office on Drugs and Crime, Actors from "Trade" talked to Reuters about working on the film, which was inspired by a three-year-old New York Times magazine article. "Trade," which was written by Jose Rivera, who was nominated for an Oscar for "The Motorcycle Diaries," tells the story of a 13-year-old Mexican girl and a young Polish woman kidnapped by traffickers and put up for sale in the United States. Kevin Kline plays a Texas policeman who with the girl's brother sets off on a dangerous rescue attempt. "When I read the script it was one of those scripts which are rare where more than the opportunity to play a certain character, I wanted to be helping to tell that story just to get that story out in a way," says Kline. Kate Del Castillo, a 2007 Mexican Ariel Award and Spanish Goya Awards nominee, portrays Laura, a cut throat human trafficker who sells abducted women as sex slaves on the Internet. Del Castillo says she'd heard about sex trafficking, "but you know sometimes you just think of those issues like they're so far away and they used to happen maybe. But, it's just incredible, when I read the statistics I was just overwhelmed and shocked that it's going on in 2007." The actress says she loved playing an "evil" character and being able to shed light on a critical issue. Polish actress Alicia Bachleda was a last minute addition to the film's lineup. Bachleda, who portrays a young Polish mother looking for a better life for her son in America, says she was stunned at the grave proportion of the sex trafficking epidemic in the U.S. A CIA report estimated that between 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are brought to the United States every year under false pretenses and forced to work as prostitutes, abused laborers or servants. The U.S. State Department reported that about 1.1 million people are smuggled across borders around the world every year, most of them women and children. And the U.N. International Labor Organization estimated that profits from trafficking humans are some $32 billion a year. "Trade" will hit theaters in North America on September 28th.

ITN Source | September 27, 2007

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