In an effort to increase awareness of child prostitution in Thailand and as part of a national tour, the grassroots organization SOLD showed its documentary “The SOLD Project: Thailand” yesterday in the Law School’s Tull Auditorium.

The film focuses on a Thai child’s life before, during and after participating in prostitution.

SOLD was founded last year by Rachel Sparks, an Indiana Wesleyan University alumna. She and Rachel Goble, a Westmont College alumna, who got in touch with Sparks after studying human sex trafficking in India, produced the documentary. SOLD collaborates with organizations in Thailand, such as Volunteers for Children Development Foundation and the Whispering Seed, which aim to save Thai children from prostitution by providing shelter and education.

“Its original inspiration was really just to create a good film that gave hope to the issue of child prostitution,” Goble said. “The question behind it in the founding of it was, ‘What are the faces behind the statistics, what can we as people do to help?’”

Sparks said her New York City church, interested in social justice, pushed her to investigate the issue of human trafficking. Since her father worked in the film industry, she said, she found that the best way to get involved was to film a documentary.

“It was a lot of exposing yourself to the issue and allowing yourself to dive right in and experience the culture and people,” Sparks said.

According to Goble, many families in Thailand cannot afford to pay for their children’s schooling, so the children are forced to drop out and are sent to the city to work, which can lead to their exploitation.

SOLD’s goal is to obtain scholarships for Thai children, she said, so that they can go to school and be protected from prostitution.

“Families, for the most part, know what will happen when their child is sent away to work. No family wants that; it’s just a lack of options,” Goble said. “By providing scholarships to children, it gives them just another option and alleviates pressure from families.”

When making the film, Sparks found it necessary to keep an open mind to the issue of child prostitution.

“It’s being willing to push aside what you think is the truth and coming to reality to what is the truth,” Sparks said. “For me, it was understanding that these children would not willingly go, but they have no other options.”

The film screening was followed by a panel discussion on commercial sexual exploitation of children in Atlanta and internationally.

The panelists were Stephanie Davis, policy advisor on women’s issues in the mayor’s office; Joseph Fonseca, coordinator for investigation of crimes against children in the FBI’s Atlanta division; Monique Hennink, associate professor in the Rollins School of Public Health; Vanisa Karic, programs director of Tapestri; Kaffie McCullough, program manager for Community Collaboratives; Kirsten Widner, a post-graduate fellow in law in the Barton Law and Policy Clinic; and Nathan Whiteman, coordinator of the MATCH taskforce in the FBI. Molly Murphy was the moderator for this panel discussion.

Hennink and McCullough said that along with awareness, prevention, rescue and rehabilitation, ending the child prostitution problem calls for reducing the demand. Recently, Atlanta had a law passed which raised the age of exotic dancers from 18 to 21, Hennick said.

“Over 800 girls under 21 applied [to be exotic dancers] last year and they were denied,” Hennink said.

Sparks said she encourages students to either join a group against human trafficking or start one if there is not one and show the SOLD film. She emphasized the need for students “to react to the issue, to act against it; use their talents to act against it.”

The event was sponsored by the Barton Child Law and Policy, Office of Student Affairs, Feminism and Legal Theory Project, Legal Association of Women Students (LAWS) and the Office of Multicultural Programs and Services.

— Contact Nihar Thadani.