ROLE: Director, producer, director of photography
DURATION: 27 minutes
BROADCASTER: RT Documentary
AVAILABLE IN: English, Russian
Stories of human exploitation all around us.
ENSLAVED
(Рабство: XXI век)
People often move to large cities in hopes of a better life. In Russia, many of them are driven by unemployment, debt and even hunger, with over 20 million living below the poverty line (and that’s just the official statistics). But their search for a new beginning can result in enslavement: unpaid exploitation, often accompanied by violence, sexual abuse and forced detention.
“One can find modern-day slavery in any large city with over a million people,” says the founder of the "Alternative" movement, Oleg Melnikov. Modern day slavery in Russia comes in three forms: involuntary prostitution, forced labour and beggars’ mafias. As the only European country that did not sign the Council of Europe Convention Against Human Trafficking, Russia does not have the appropriate laws to define and punish modern slavery.
The “Alternative” is the only NGO in Russia rescuing people from modern slavery. Out of the over 1,500 cases that the “Alternative” has dealt with, only 8-9 have reached court. This is their story.
