SAN DIEGO — A powerful new documentary on sex trafficking makes its intentions clear from the outset. “Blind Eyes Opened: The Truth About Sex Trafficking in America” begins with this scriptural passage from Isaiah: “to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”
Over the hour and a half that follows, viewers’ eyes will indeed be opened, not only by the many disturbing facts related by law enforcement personnel, legislators and those dedicated to facilitating the healing of trafficking victims, but also through the haunting first-person accounts of survivors of this modern-day form of slavery.
In a recent interview with The Southern Cross, San Diego’s diocesan newspaper, executive producer Geoffrey Rogers described the film as unabashedly “a Christian documentary.”
“Certainly it exposes the darkness, it shows the truth about sex trafficking in America – that’s the goal of it – but, when we produced it, we had a very clear objective and that was to show the hope in Jesus Christ to solve this problem,” he explained.
During the film, viewers hear from survivors who share Jesus’ role in their recovery. The film also shows Christian ministries reaching out to those in the commercial sex trade, and it concludes with a direct challenge to its Christian viewers to do more to combat this societal scourge.
Churches can host their own one-night screenings of the film until Feb. 20.
Several of those interviewed on camera in “Blind Eyes Opened” suggest that society’s blindness to this widespread crime is the result of simply not wanting to believe that such things are happening, with increasing frequency, in our own neighborhoods.
In the film, Cpl. Alan Wilkett of the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office in Florida tells viewers, “It’s happening right before our eyes, and yet we’re not seeing it.”
The film tackles such topics as the insidious ways in which children are lured by traffickers who often prey on vulnerabilities such as low self-esteem and an unstable family life; how law enforcement has shifted from viewing trafficked persons as criminals to recognizing them as crime victims; what additional steps that American society can take against trafficking; and what resources are currently available to those fortunate enough to escape from such a hellish life.
Among the many heartbreaking stories recounted in the film is that of Edie B. Rhea, founder of Healing Root Ministry Inc., a nonprofit led by trafficking survivors.
Her father died when she was 4. A few months later, a man named Bill moved in with her and her mother. He molested her when she was 10 and, two years later, began selling her for sex to strangers.
A childhood photo of a smiling Edie is seen onscreen as the grown woman recounts her lost innocence and the multiple rapes she endured at the butcher shop that Bill and her mother owned. On one occasion, Bill prostituted her in exchange for a new meat grinder.
Rhea says in the film that she believes that there were “lots of opportunities for people to see (what was happening), but they didn’t see.”
“The signs were there,” she said. “They just looked the other way.”
— Denis Grasska, Catholic News Service
Get more info
For more information about the film, visit www.BlindEyesOpened.com. Churches interested in learning how to host a screening can do so by visiting www.faithcontentnetwork.com, clicking on “See the Current Film Line-Up,” and selecting “Blind Eyes Opened: The Truth About Sex Trafficking in America.”