Born into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids
(2004)

When documentary photographer Zana Briski went to Calcutta, she made the sex workers there a deal. In exchange for portraits, she would teach their kids some photography skills. They could document their lives. Many of the photos, as well as the children’s stories and relationships with the filmmakers, appear in this film.

The film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005.

The Chosen Ones
(2015)

This drama centers on the relationship between Sofia and Ulysis, two teenagers in love. There’s more to the story: Ulysis is in charge of grooming his girlfriend for his family’s prostitution ring. Things get complicated when he realizes he actually cares about her.

The Chosen Ones, which was shortlisted for an Academy Award, digs into the causes and effects of forced sex labor in Mexico.

Girl Model
(2011)

This documentary explores the disturbing relationship between Siberia and Japan. In the Japanese market, young girls from Siberia are very popular. Scouts bring them to Tokyo, where they’re manipulated and exploited. Though not legally human trafficking, the practices of the industry and modeling agents are right on the doorstep.

While the film fails to dig into the possible forced sex work that might be happening, it does show how the agents groom potential victims.

I am Jane Doe
(2017)

This documentary focuses on the legal suits brought against Backpage.com, a classified ad website notorious for sex trafficking. It follows the mothers of victims who sued, their lawyers and groups who pushed back on attempts to hold Backpage accountable. The U.S. Congress held a private screening of the film. In 2018, the FBI seized Backpage.

Priceless
(2016)

A project from the band For King and Country, this romantic drama can be a good introduction to human trafficking for younger people. It tells the fictional story of James Stevens, a widower who agrees to drive a truck against the country, no questions asked. He soon learns he’s working for a human trafficking ring.

The film received mixed reviews, but it does introduce viewers to the role that trucking plays in trafficking. The nonprofit Truckers Against Trafficking addresses the problem by training drivers to identify and report suspicious activity.

Sex Trafficking
in America
(2019)

This documentary aired as part of PBS Frontline’s 2019 season. It follows a Phoenix-based police unit dedicated to stopping sex trafficking and relates a survivor’s story. Sex trafficking is often something that many Americans believe is an international problem, but this film proves that it’s a serious issue in the country, as well.

The Storm Makers
(2014)

The War
Against Women
(2013)

This documentary explores the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, the use of women as a battleground, and the war tribunals that follow. The documentary was filmed over three years in ten different countries, including Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It tells survivors’ stories and examines why sexual violence is used in this way.

Eye-opening and heartbreaking, the film is a call to action for governments and the international community to pay more attention to an oft-ignored war crime and crime against humanity.

The Whistleblower
(2010)

A Canadian-German-American production, this biographical crime drama stars Rachel Weisz as Kathryn Bolkovac. While working as a UN peacekeeper for DynCorp International in Bosnia, Kathryn discovered a sex trafficking ring run by DynCorp employees. When she tried to take action, she was fired. What happened next educates the viewer on how corruption affects attempts to deal with human trafficking.

The film contains intense violence that some felt was exploitative. Others believed it was necessary.

Bulbbul
(2020)

Set against the backdrop of the 1880s Bengal Presidency, Bulbbul starts with a precocious child bride, the titular character, who forms a sweet friendship with her husband’s youngest brother, Satya, who is closer to her age. Satya is sent overseas to study and returns years later to a much-changed home: his oldest brother has disappeared, and his second brother is murdered in his sleep. Bulbbul now has an unsettling, self-assured energy, and the villagers tell whispered tales of a demon woman haunting the forest and killing men. While Satya tries to solve the mystery of murdered men with logic, Jonathan Harker style, the viewer slowly learns about the horrors that happened during his absence and why the demon is targeting these particular men.

An atmospheric gothic horror, this film is about abuse and revenge, with an underlying message about the far-reaching consequences of violence against women.

Knots: A Forced Marriage Story
(2021)

Child marriage is a huge and pervasive problem in the U.S.; it is legal in 46 out of 50 states and affects children as young as 12. This feature-length documentary follows three forced marriage survivors – Nina, Sara, and Fraidy – as they talk about their lives and the circumstances of their marriages to adult men while they were children and about their fight to escape and survive.

The film also follows the advocates, experts, and lawmakers who are fighting to end this human rights abuse in the U.S. Eye-opening in that it explains current laws, reveals traditions that lead to child marriage and shows how it impacts communities. The film is also about the strength of the women who survive to fight for future generations.

Dangerous Intentions
(1995)

Dangerous Intentions originally aired on CBS in 1995. It talks about the issue of domestic violence that first started being discussed in the 1970s, so in 1995, it was still a fairly recent subject matter for movies.

The film is allegedly based on a true story and follows a woman dealing with an abusive husband, parents who don’t believe her and a legal system that won’t protect her. This is an interesting movie to watch because it is a bit older, but it also portrays problems that still happen today, like victim blaming.

Maid
(2021)

This limited drama series was inspired by American author Stephanie Land’s memoir Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive. It tells the story of a young mother, Alex Russel, just after she has left an abusive partner, running with her two-year-old daughter to a shelter. She gets a low-paying job cleaning houses and starts to piece her life back together while raising her daughter and dealing with government assistance, a dysfunctional family, and her abusive ex-boyfriend in a system that does not make it easy for single mothers or abused women.

The film shows the insidious effects of emotional abuse and the demoralizing formal procedures of completing labyrinthine forms to obtain government help, as well as how it’s possible to survive world-destroying changes with persistence and support.

Private Violence
(2014)

While the stats on domestic abuse are overwhelming, often, the best way to communicate its effects is through intimate portraits. This 2014 documentary zeroes in on a justice advocate and the domestic abuse survivor she’s representing. Despite the fact that Deanna’s husband kidnapped her, along with their daughter, and beat her so badly that the doctors were horrified, he was not immediately arrested.

The film follows Deanna’s case, which is taken up by advocate Kit Gruelle, who herself is a survivor of domestic violence. Private Violence shows just how challenging and complex navigating the legal system can be.

Captive
(2021)

This documentary by journalist and filmmaker Mellissa Fung is about three girls trying to piece their lives back together after being held captive by the terror group Boko Haram during the brutal war in northeastern Nigeria. Captive follows Zara, Asa’u and Gambo over four years as they grapple with the physical, psychological and social scars of abduction, rape and violence and being marked by stigma by their own communities. Fung herself was once a captive of a terror group, having been kidnapped by Afghan rebels in 2009 and held in a pit for a month. Because of this, she tells the girls’ stories with empathy, and the documentary sometimes feels like an exchange of stories by survivors.