It’s remarkable, though: several of the Eastern European prostitutes I have met, tend to take the airplane to go and see their families (often also comprising the kids they’re providing for) back home.

From a Guardian article on the project (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/oct/03/guardiansocietysupplement.crime):

‘Each container had been curated by a different artist, from artist Anish Kapoor to Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell. Visitors emerged white faced and shaken. Nearly 24 hours later, I could not get the image out of my head of the empty bedroom of a trafficked woman, trapped in prostitution: the dirty unmade bed, the bowls full of condoms, the used condoms half pushed under the bed, the price list daubed in felt tip on a board – oral sex, anal sex, £10 extra for kissing.’

As a client I have never seen places like these (though never in England, granted)… And I wonder, would coerced sex be any less bad, if performed under beauty parlor conditions?

And where is she? Is she supposed to be dressed as a Russian? Is that supposed to convey a picture of helpless Eastern European women trafficked to the flesh pots of the West? Isn’t the next director of UNDOC a Russian?

And what do film-stars add to messages like this? They deal in illusions, so perhaps the message is that trafficking is an illusion? What film stars would appear in a pro-trafficking campaign? Or maybe more realistically – a Halt the Moral Panic campaign. (Helen Mirren, Billie Piper, Julia Roberts??)

Was this ever focus tested?

Many questions – few answers to this age old phenomenon.