Agonising film SOLD shows the brutality of child trafficking | Daily Mail Online

‘Trafficking children for sex is an abomination of humanity': Gillian Anderson admits being shocked at the scale of the slave trade in India

• Up to 46 million people globally live as slaves, generating an estimated $150 billion in illegal profits a year
• An estimated 1.8 million children are sold into the sex trade every year 
• Sold is based on a book about a Nepali girl trapped in the sex trade
• The movie follows 13-year-old Lakshmi as she fights to escape the red-light district of Kolkata, India
• See more news from India at www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome 

By DAVID DAWKINS FOR MAILONLINE INDIA and REUTERS

PUBLISHED: 16:31 EDT, 29 November 2016 | UPDATED: 19:11 EDT, 29 November 2016

‘It is the fastest growing black market industry in the world. It is easier to traffic humans than to traffic drugs.'

Star of the X-Files and The Fall, actor Gillian Anderson is set to play an anti-slavery campaigner in her new movie, ‘Sold',  after being shocked at the scale of the problem in India.

Before shooting began, Anderson says she was unaware that up to 46 million people globally live as slaves, generating an estimated $150 billion in illegal profits a year.

Star of the X Files and The Fall, actor Gillian Anderson is set to play an anti-slavery campaigner after being shocked at the scale of the problem in India and around the world (pictured – Sonagachi red-light area in Kolkata)

Agonising film SOLD shows the brutality of child trafficking

Based on a book about a Nepali girl trapped in the sex trade, ‘Sold' follows 13-year-old Lakshmi as she fights to escape the red-light district of Kolkata, India.

In the film Anderson's role is inspired by real-life U.S. photographer, Lisa Kristine, known for documenting victims of modern day slavery trafficked into forced labour, sold for sex, trapped in debt bondage or born into servitude.

The film is being screened in London on Wednesday at Trust Women, an annual women's rights and trafficking conference run by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Street children begging for money from a tourist in a taxi, West Bengal

Describing slavery as a pandemic, Anderson said it was shocking that so many people are living as slaves today in every country across the globe, from India to the United States.

‘At certain points in one's life one realises there are issues that break your heart,' Anderson, 48, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

‘I've been involved in many charities over the years but the issue of trafficking, particularly child trafficking for sex, is such an abomination of humanity that I cannot, not, do something.'

Babies bought and sold in West Bengal

A probe into a suspected international human trafficking ring in West Bengal has been widened after 10 more babies were rescued and the skeletons of two infants were discovered.

Police found the infants, all under one year old, lying on a sheet on the ground on Friday in a home for the mentally disabled run by a charity in Behala, in the impoverished district of South 24 Parganas.

A swoop on the offices of a different adoption centre run by a charity in the neighbouring district of North 24 Parganas on the same day led police to find the skeletons of two infants, who are suspected to have died there while awaiting sale.

The raids come after the discovery of three newborn babies on Monday last week in a nursing home in Baduria, 80 km (50 miles) from Kolkata.

The babies had been hidden inside cardboard biscuit boxes in a locked storeroom in the home, where women would come to deliver or have an abortion.

Early investigations indicated that unmarried women and girls had been talked into selling their children after going to the private clinic to terminate their pregnancies.

Interrogation of clinic's staff then led investigators to conduct 20 more raids in what police say appears to be a highly organised human trafficking racket

Rajesh Kumar of West Bengal's Crime Investigation Department (CID), said 18 people had so far been arrested for taking the newborn babies and trafficking them for adoption in India and overseas.

‘It is a huge network of NGOs, nursing homes, doctors and middlemen dealing in illegal adoption and baby trafficking that the police have busted.'

South Asia, with India at its centre, is one of the fastest-growing regions for human trafficking in the world.

Gangs sell thousands of victims into bonded labour every year or hire them out to exploitative bosses as domestic servants, or sectors such as farming and manufacturing. Many women and girls are sold into brothels.

Kumar said one of the doctors arrested on suspicion of involvement in the baby smuggling racket had over $3,200 in US dollars, euros and Hong Kong dollars in his possession, suggesting the infants were being sold overseas.

‘The seizure of this foreign currency is a definite indication that the racket may have its tentacles spread into foreign countries and foreign couples who were interested in baby adoption,' he said. 

The Thriving trade in humans 

The truth is out there: Gillian Anderson pictured as Agent Dana Scully

Anderson, who has three children aged from 22 to eight, said it was unacceptable that an estimated 1.8 million children were trafficked into the sex trade every year.

Globally, nearly 21 million people are victims of human trafficking, according to the International Labour Organization.

Of that total, an estimated 4.5 million people are forced into sex work, despite the fact international law and the laws of 134 countries criminalize sex trafficking. 

Women and girls make up an estimated 98 percent of victims of sex trafficking.

‘It is the fastest growing black market industry in the world. It is easier to traffic humans than to traffic drugs,' says Anderson.

‘The film is an entry point to the issue. By telling one girl's story it gives voice to the millions of children who are trafficked every year.'

New movie Sold show the agonising reality of losing a child to child slavery

New movie sold tells the story of a young girl's journey into India sex trade

Anderson, who lives in London, said she hoped ‘Sold', set for a digital release early next year, would help raise awareness of the issue.

It is being backed by a campaign TaughtNotTrafficked, which is lobbying for children to have access to an education.

She said governments did not appear to know how to start to combat trafficking which was ‘an intricately woven web', while companies needed to be involved to clean up their supply chains.

Children forced to work in the sex trade are locked inside

‘Funds and action and time and resources and a different structuring of policing – a lot needs to take place in order for this to change and it has to become a priority,' said Anderson.

‘It affects all of us even though we might not realise it. It is in every city, in every country … and we need to start the conversation about what we can do to make changes.'

Anderson said the revival of her role as Dana Scully in ‘The X-Files' this year for a 10th season after a 14-year gap may have helped draw some attention to her campaign work.

A brothel madam grooms her young charge in new movie ‘Sold'

‘I am not a big social media person but there was something about being wrapped up in that series again that initiated more activity from me,' said Anderson who has just finished two films, ‘Crooked House' and ‘Viceroy's House', for 2017 release.

‘In that sense maybe more people would have become aware of the fact that I am part of a campaign to end slavery.'