How trafficking starts · a two-part series for Hagar
Client: Hagar International Vietnam · Two-part drama-documentary · 4 min each · 2022
The brief
During COVID-19, lost jobs and income made more young people in Vietnam's mountain communities easy targets for traffickers. Hagar wanted films that show how it happens, so people can recognise the signs, and what recovery looks like for those who come home.
What made it hard
Trafficking usually starts with something that looks harmless: a kind message, a job offer, a friend of a friend. The film had to make that feel real and frightening for a young audience, without graphic scenes and without putting a real victim on camera.
The decision that made it work
Part 1 is shot entirely from the victim's point of view, with an actor playing her. The audience sees what she sees: a friendly message on her phone, a man buying her a drink, a motorbike ride out of her village, a dark wooden house she can't leave.
Nothing on screen is graphic. Seeing it through her eyes is what makes it frightening, and it shows each step where she could have stopped.
Part 2: the way home
Part 2 follows the same young woman on her way back to her village after Hagar helps rescue her, and through her return to her community: medical care, counselling with a Hagar case worker, and the support local government gives returning survivors. Simple line drawings set out each type of support, from basic needs and travel home to legal help, vocational training and small loans.
Who this kind of film is for
Prevention and awareness campaigns on trafficking, scams, abuse or unsafe migration, where the audience needs to recognise the danger before it happens to them.