The special screening was held in Washington DC last night for the acclaimed film, HOLLY, opened by Ambassador Mark Lagon, and was followed by a question and answer session, with Ambassador Lagon, Guy Jacobson, and Adi Ezroni.

A young girl running desperately through the streets, being chased by two men, her tiny feet taking her as fast as they can. Loosing her breath and her gain over her predators, she is finally caught despite the watchful eyes on the street, no one sees Holly’s (Thuy Nguyen) fate. Her eyes full of fear as she is brought back to her brothel owner, “You run again, I’ll kill you!”, she says. Locked in her room, “Let me out…Let me out…Let me out”, she screams, but Holly knows her efforts are futile and she quickly gives up and again excepts her dire fate.

A bell rings and girls quickly run from all directions to line the streets, a car approaches and they put on their best smiles. “I have new girl, she is virgin…very special!” Holly cowards away from the window as her ‘Mama San’ points to her, her virginity is priced at $1,000 for one week. Today Holly escapes her fate, as the Jon thinks the price is to high.

Patrick (Ron Livingston) is a lost soul, an American expat consumed by the desire to escape life he spends most of his time playing cards and drinking his troubles away. He finds himself stuck in the town laden with young children enslaved in prostitution, sadly this is no shock to Patrick and he continues to look blindly on his surroundings. But this time he cannot escape, and while it may seem like it only begins with a Pepsi, it begins the moment he looks up and into Holly’s eyes.

Shot on location in Cambodia, Holly will send you on an emotional journey through the streets of Phnom Penh an take you right into the heart of the notorious red light district where many scenes where filmed, some in actual brothels, which gives Holly the realness the film needed to drive it’s message home. Holly is not a film made to be a box office hit, it was not made to bring fame and glory to the films actors, producers and director, it was a film made to make a difference and that is exactly what it does. After you see Holly you will not have seen a movie, but you will have stared straight into the world of human trafficking and sexual slavery. Writer/producer Guy Jacobson, set out on a mission with this film, a mission that has now become a tireless life long mission for Jacobson and the rest of the films cast and crew. Holly doesn’t end at the box office, the film is only the beginning of a long journey to save millions of children like Holly.

Can Holly be saved? Patrick is told by Marie (Virginie Ledoyen) who works at AFESIP, a shelter for girls rescued from sexual slavery, when he inquires about what to do now that he saved Holly, from her fate, “You didn’t even save her yet. It takes five minutes to rescue a girl, but five years to reintegrate her into society”. Like Patrick we are often overrun with hopelessness as saving a child from slavery is no easy feat, but like Patrick and those who work tirelessly in the field, we cannot give up hope, we cannot stop working to to save those we can. Most of all we must work at the roots of the problem, demand and poverty, and see that prevention is the number one priority world wide.

As Patrick says in the film, when asked why he was trying to save Holly, “You develop this glazed stare…and as long as you don’t look into their eyes you are fine…, but I stopped, I looked into her eyes!” And like Patrick I too have looked into the eyes of slavery and no longer can I ever look away. I hope Holly gives you the incite you need so that you too can never look away. If we begin to open eyes around the world, then we will begin to see the enormity of the problem of this $12 billion dollar criminal industry. An industry in which more than 1 million children, women and men around the world are sold into sexual slavery every year, according to UNICEF. The U.S. State Department estimates 800,000 victims are trafficked across international borders annually. More than a quarter of the victims of sex trafficking and sexual slavery are children aged 9-15 years old, but children as young as 5, and even a year old are often sent into this world of darkness.

For more information on the film, including interviews with writer/producer Guy Jacobson, producer Adi Ezroni, and Ron Livingston, go to Priority Films

Links:
Red Light Children’s Project
Somaly Mam Foundation
AFESIP
The Facts About Sex Tourism

Related MySpace and Facebook Pages
Share and promote the film to all your friends, and you will all ready be making a difference:
K-11 Project
Red Light Children Campaign
Holly
Child Sexploitation. Expose it. Fight it. End it
The Redlight Children Campaign

Where Can You See Holly?

Here are some locations, but please check your local listings, as the film will make a second launch after the holidays. Some of the cinemas will be holding special screenings with an opportunity to meet the film makers and learn more about the issues.

Dupont Theater in Washington, DC
Angelika in Houston, TX
Cinemark Westchase in Houston, TX
L.A. Music Hall in Los Angeles, CA
Regal Garden Grove in Los Angeles, CA
Regal Westminster in Los Angeles, CA
Regal Long Beach Stadium in Long Beach, CA
Uptown Birmingham in Detroit, MI
Kabuki Theater in San Francisco, CA - Nov. 30th Q&A with writer/producer Guy Jacobson
Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley, CA
Regal Village Square in Las Vegas, NV
Regal Boulder Station 11 in Las Vegas, NV
Regal Meridian in Seattle, WA - Dec. 2nd Q&A with writer/producer Guy Jacobson
Regal Valley Art in Tempe, AZ
Regal Fox Tower in Portland, OR - Nov. 30th Q&A with producer Adi Ezroni
Regal Arbor Cinema in Austin, TX - Dec. 2nd Q&A with producer Adi Ezroni

Last week, the NY Times brought the issue of child soldiers to the public’s attention in the hard hitting article, The Prefect Weapon for the Meanest Wars.

Africa has the largest amount of child soldiers, with an estimated 200,000, of the total world estimate of around 300,000 child soldiers. I am of course cynical, and believe all figures to be much higher, however the proportion of child soldiers in Africa is hardly disputable.

It was in the early 1980’s when child warfare seem to hit a new high, but unfortunately it has not decreased in this time, but more than likely increased by substantial percentage. Children have been used in wars since the dawn of time, but the use of children in our time has reached a point where is not becoming more civilized, or safer. Children’s rights have increasingly been ignore and violated, and sadly we mostly sit idly by, allowing young children to strap on riffles and grenades, as they fight a grown mans war.

Why are child soldiers on the increase? The answer is simple, they are easy to manipulate! Children are not only easy to sculpt into the perfect soldiers and killers, in their youth and naivety are reliable due to their ability to become extremely loyal. And unfortunately there are greater numbers of children in our population than adults, thus they are almost seen as disposable, due to their large availability.

Countries in Africa using child soldiers now and in the past include; Angola, Algeria, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal.

Why are the countries of Africa using child soldiers so heavily, and what makes them different to the use of children in the past? Children where used in the American Civil War, they where used by the Nazis, they have been used in Iran and as I have recently written they are used being in the Middle East. Child soldiers in the Middle East are fueled by religion, independence and political ideology. While in Africa the driving force is greed and power. Child soldiers in Africa are led by brutal regimes and little is being done to stop it. With little to no education, an unstable environment and poverty are all reason as to how a child can be so children are easily manipulated in today’s wars. Weapons are cheap, light weight and easy to use, thus it takes little training or money to get a child ready to fight.

‘One rebel commander declared that: “They’re very good at getting information. You can send them across enemy lines and nobody suspects them [because] they’re so young.” And as soon as they are strong enough to handle an assault rifle or a semi-automatic weapon (normally at 10 years of age), children are used as soldiers‘ (The Use of Child Soldiers in Africa: An Overview Child Participation in Armed Conflict in Africa).

Why should you be concerned about child soldiers in Africa, as you sit safely in the US? First, lets look at the obvious reason, its inhumane and against every principle of human rights to allow this to continue. I know what your thinking, as I’ve been told it so many times before, including just this morning “We have so many of our own problems in America right now, and everyone hates us any way for always getting involved!”. However whether you realize it or not the issue effects you , in more ways than you can imagine. Firstly, lets remember that these children are the future leaders of these countries and if the cycle is not broken it will only continue to breed more war, hate and violence. We must understand these are not wars fought by rebellious teenagers and juvenile delinquents”, these are children who’s lives are stolen from them, there innocence is ripped away through fear and greed.

Okello John, a former child soldier of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), said of his initiation: “I did not kill anyone for the first four days of my captivity and then, on the fifth day, they said I had to prove I wasn’t scared, they took me back to my village and ordered me to kill my father. At first, I said no, I can’t kill my father, but then they said they’d kill us all and started beating me with a panga [machete]. I took the panga and cut him up. I then saw them do it to my mother. The first night, I was haunted by visions of my father as I tried to sleep. I could only cry silent tears as the rebels could not know that I regretted what I had done. They do it so that you can’t go back home.” (Uganda: Former child soldiers excluded in adulthood)

Ending the use of child soldiers is no easy feat by any means, but can we afford to sit idly by and watch an entire generation of child grow up thinking this is the way wars are fought? “Above all, we have to take every measure to ensure these children are not returned home to be thrown into combat situations,” said UNICEF representative, Michel Sidibe (UN Finds Congo Child Solders).

Please see my posting on April 4, 007, The True Victims of War; The Child Soldiers of Today, for more information.

Links:
USA Support Needed for International Campaign to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
Choike - Child Soldiers - In depth Information and Great Links
Human Rights Watch - Child Soldiers
DRC: Child soldier recruitment continues
Child Soldiers 1379 Report
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
World Revolution
The Middle East North Africa (MENA) Regional Network to Stop the Use of Children as Soldiers
Stolen Childhood
Children with Guns
War Child
Optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict
The Child Soldiers Project