New York - The film 'Trade' premiering in Berlin on Thursday has been described by its star Kevin Kline as 'gut-wrenching, alarming and disturbing' because it is a story of human beings trafficked into sex slavery.
In the film, which made its world debut last month, Academy Award- winning actor Kline plays the role of a Texan police officer sent to track down the abductions of a 13-year-old Mexican girl and Eastern European woman. He soon discovers the network and methods used to sell young women and boys into the sex market.
Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC,) said in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa Wednesday that human trafficking is a 'gigantic' problem.
'It involves hundreds of thousands of people, it generates huge income and affects all countries in the world,' Costa said.
When the feature film was first shown at UN headquarters in September, Costa warned: 'This brutally honest movie may upset you, or make you angry, or disgust you. It will certainly not leave you indifferent to a crime that is hidden, yet widespread - the crime of buying, selling and exploiting human beings also known as human trafficking.'
Well-meaning organizations and some UN agencies fighting human trafficking put the number at 2.5 million people traded across international borders for the purposes of providing pleasure to clients in receiving countries.
Costa said it is very difficult to arrive an exact figure because of the shadowy networks and organized crime involved in the sex trade. He said the figure may be lower, closer to 1 million people caught into sex slavery conditions.
Illegal immigrants or runaway people with no money or papers often fall into the web of organized crime and prostitution.
'It is very difficult to separate one from the other, these numbers reflect more our ignorance and our inability to measure the problems than anything else,' Costa said.
Whether fighting corruption, organized crime or poppy cultivation in Afghanistan and Myanmar, UNODC is overwhelmed by the global problems and its underfunded staff in Vienna has had to continuously campaign for resources to bring the fight against crime to governments around the world.
Costa said the annual budget for UNDOC is about 200 million dollars, less than the budget of New York City's garbage hauling department.
'We are removing the dirt of the world,' Costa said.
Tracking down the sources of human trafficking and its destinations is a problem involving international police as well as governments, backed by international agreements on the prevention and criminalization of human trafficking, and the rescue of the victims.
The annual market value of human trafficking was put by Costa at 32 billion dollars, second only to organized crime. The UN and experts on the issue said 10 billion dollars is derived from the initial 'sale' of individuals and the remaining represents the estimated revenues from the activities of the victims.
UNODC has identified Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine as countries where individuals can be recruited into the sex market while Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the United States are the most common destinations.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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