© 2013 Chelo Alvarez-Stehle. Permissions.
SANDS OF SILENCE documents the 15-year quest of filmmaker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle to expose the underworld of sex trafficking from Asia to the Americas as she bonds with four survivors.
Anu, abducted from the Himalayas and sold to Mumbai’s red-light district where she tries to commit suicide, fails and sends her traffickers to jail; Shanti, a child carpet-factory worker lured and sold to a brothel in India, faces life with AIDS; Chong, a Korean-American, trafficked by an Eastern-European ring from Oklahoma to Las Vegas becomes a madam before escaping, and the main character, Virginia, a Mexican-American, kidnapped while breast-feeding her newborn during a stay in Mexico is enslaved in makeshift brothels in the Chiapas jungle.
The filmmaker discovers the roots of her quest buried in her own life memories while she follows the women she initially viewed as pitiful, powerless victims as they transform themselves into inspiring crusaders against sexual violence.