Malibu filmmaker launches entertainment-based campaign to stop 21st-century slavery — By Bibi Jordan / Special to The Malibu TimesMalibu filmmaker Chelo Alvarez-Stehle is bringing focus to a delicate, but all too real problem that most Americans assume no longer exists: slavery. She is one of a group of Malibu activists determined to educate teens about human trafficking, the most pervasive modern form of slavery.To this end, she is currently producing a transmedia project that combines a documentary film, “SANDS OF SILENCE: A Personal Journey Into the Trafficking of Women,” and a social impact, web-based game, “SOS_SLAVES: Changing the Trafficking Game.”This is a timely campaign given that January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Evidence of this global problem can even be seen on the local level. The Los Angeles Times ran an article in December about the naturalization of a 22-year-old girl from Egypt who had been smuggled into the United States and enslaved in domestic servitude for ten years by a wealthy couple living in Irvine. In 2010, a Beverly Hills recruitment agency was indicted in the largest human trafficking case in U.S. history.“My first encounter with sex trafficking took place fourteen years ago in the Himalayas,” Alvarez-Stehle said. There she met a young girl named Anu Chari Maya Tamang who, as a teenager, had been trafficked by fellow villagers to India. Dumped in a brothel and forced to work as a prostitute, she attempted to end her own life. Thankfully, she survived the suicide attempt and 22 tortuous months as a sex slave.  Read more

Source: Working to change human trafficking | Malibu Life | malibutimes.com