By Miles Mathias

Sex trafficking, also known as human trafficking, at first seemed like an issue too big to take on. But once I had done some research about the teenage victims of the issue, it helped me find the heart of what I ended up writing.

When I started doing research on victims of sex trafficking, I discovered many harrowing facts that really put the true tragedies of it into perspective. It’s not easy thinking about the fact that victims recruited can be as young as twelve years old. According to The Prostitution of Children in America:A Guide for Parents and Guardians, in North America, the number of kids who are at risk of becoming victims each year is up to 325,000. Those who carry with them a history of physical and sexual abuse are more likely to be prayed on and potentially recruited by pimps who most likely think they’ll be easier to exploit.

When I was coming up with the idea and name of my short film “Blinded”, my goal was to show the consequences of parents not noticing the signs of sex trafficking on their children. The short film was supposed to be a sixty-second commercial and not a short movie. Naturally, the message needed to be fairly blunt and very memorable.

In my favorite sixty-second PSA’s, there’s a grand main image that gets the message across perfectly and stays in the audience’s head for a long time afterward, maybe even forever. Once the idea for using literal blindfolds came up, the PSA became much more exciting and rewarding to write. Hopefully, the short film will cause an increased awareness in battling human trafficking in Milwaukee, often called the hub of sex trafficking.

Disconnection Between Parents & Their Children

I think that, especially during teenage years, there’s a unique and oftentimes tragic disconnection between parents and their children. Parents are trying to give their kids their personal space, and teenagers usually don’t see their relationship with their family and their relationships with their friends as wholly compatible. Because of this, parents and their kids don’t always spend much time interacting.

I think we should encourage relationships, especially in families, where people, especially younger people, know it’s okay to have insecurities and fears, and it’s okay to have doubts and make mistakes. Communication is the backbone of all relationships, and it’s most healthy to be with people who are fine with you wearing your heart on your sleeve once in a while.

Working with Neo Soul Productions was an opportunity to spend the summer doing something that would benefit the people of Milwaukee, while also building some skills in the field I want to go into when I’m done with school. If I don’t do anything else this summer, I just hope that I’ve educated people on a subject some people might not know much about, and helped some people feel like they’re not alone. I feel people deserve love and support in life.

I’m just saying…