APT enjoys facilitated Forward-Planning Meeting, 8 October 2018.

At their monthly meeting on 8 October last, the members of Act to Prevent Trafficking (APT) had a facilitated session to review the objectives of the group and to set priorities for the year ahead.  Awareness-raising, through various means, continues to be a central focus, as well as monitoring the implementation of the Sexual Offences Act 2017, highlighting the interface between degradation of the earth and human trafficking and developing APT’s presence on social media.  The group is also committed to liaising with other agencies sharing the same concerns and to involving volunteers, in particular, young people.

In view of the forthcoming EU Anti-Trafficking day, the meeting concluded with the screening of Nefarious: Merchant of Souls – a 2011 American documentary film about modern human trafficking, specifically sexual slavery.   Nefarious, presented from a Christian worldview, covers human trafficking in the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia.  People who had themselves been trafficked talk about their experience of physical abuse and attempted murder.

Nefarious was written, directed, produced and narrated by Benjamin Nolot, founder and president of Exodus Cry, the film’s distributor. Nolot, who travelled to nineteen countries to collect the film’s content, explained that the purpose of the film is “to draw people’s attention to the issue, but also to inspire them in terms of what they can be doing … to take a stand against this injustice.”  The film was screened in several countries in an attempt to persuade governments to make laws similar to Sweden’s Sex Purchase Act, which criminalizes the purchasing rather than the selling of sex.

Interviewees in the film include Canadian journalist Victor Malarek, therapist Dan Allender, clinical psychologist Melissa Farley, anti-trafficking activist Helen Sworn, Annie Lobert, formerly involved in prostitution, and Swedish detective superintendent Kajsa Wahlberg.  Nefarious has won several film awards.  (details re Nefarious, adapted from Wikipedia)

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