Start date: March 2007
End date: January 2008
Media types: television, cinema
Issue: governance and human rights
Country: Cambodia
Human trafficking
In the Asia Pacific region, 1.4 million people are the victims of human trafficking into forced labour.
Nearly 50% of these end up as unpaid sex workers.
If they manage to escape, they often face discrimination from their communities at home.
The media can play a significant role both in warning potential victims and changing discriminatory attitudes.
In the dark
'In the Dark' is a 100 minute feature film about a young woman who escapes after being enticed by traffickers into forced labour and then a brothel.
Inexpensively produced by re-using material from our Cambodian television soap opera,
Taste of Life, the film uses drama to inform audiences of the dangers and realities of human trafficking, and about the link between migration and trafficking.
The film played in cinemas for a week across three provincial and one urban precinct during June 2007, and was shown on national television in January 2008.
Research and impact
We conducted a phone survey with 200 cinema goers across the four provinces to measure impact.
Viewers said after seeing the film that families should carefully check where young relatives were being sent to work.
They were happy that the heroine escaped from the traffickers and said former forced sex workers should receive sympathy from their communities, on returning home.
- During June 2007, the film played in cinemas for a week across four areas, reaching an audience of over 4500 young people, mainly aged 11 to 20 years
- 87% of those who saw the film said they would be careful of accepting a job away from home and not believe employment promises so easily
- The film was most popular with young women in the audience
