This is FRONTLINE's old website. The content here may be outdated or no longer functioning.

Browse over 300 documentaries
on our current website.

Watch Now

Sex Slaves [home page]
  • home
  • discussion
  • the story
  • what's needed
photo of katia

Katia, from Moldova, was sold into sexual slavery in Turkey. Her husband decided to go undercover and try to find her.

Join the Discussion: What are your thoughts on the multibilltion dollar global sex trade? What can be done to combat it and help its victims?

Dear FRONTLINE,

As I watched the story on Katia and her devistated husband, I could cry. It is not fair that she had to endure pain and cruelty for a mere $1,000. She fought back and was beat down and drugged for a sick man's pleasure. What makes this story hit home for me is that she did not want to be a prostitute. The second Vlad took the money, he also took Katia's voice and right to choose. She may not have been able to reach out to her husband, but thank God he was reaching out to her. I am so glad she is safe, and can now speak and live! They need to punish these men and the women who support these sick demonic men. Women need to stop being overlooked and treated like cattle that is rented out. Something has to give!

Beaufort, North Carolina

Dear FRONTLINE,

I would like to help Tania and her family from the Ukraine in particular. Her story touched me and I felt like she was speaking to me, reaching out for help to someone she didn't even know was there. I was compelled to startup my computer and write. I know there is a company set up to send them money, but it seems like they need much more than just money. Is there a way to send them supplies such as food, clothing, books, etc.? Do they have an interest in coming to the USA? I can send money but poor Tania has been so devastated by life that she needs some people who will support her and her family with more than just dollars. Please send her my love and support and let her know that someone is praying for her and hopes she can find hope and peace in her life. I am here to help in any way possible.

Springfield, IL

FRONTLINE's editors respond:

If you are interested in helping any of the victims of sex trafficking who appeared in this report, "Sex Slaves," a trust account has been opened by the Canadian production company responsible for the film. The company has been collecting donations and wiring them directly to the victims who appear in the documentary. Should you be interested in helping, you can contact the producers of the film at victimsoftrafficking@apltd.ca for further information.

Dear FRONTLINE,

If we quench the demand, than the supply will diminish. How to do that?Publish the names of the people surprised with a prostitute, using drugs, etc on the local newspapers, in the church bullettins, in their work place. Inform the families, make them parias in their environment. No need to put them in prison and a fine would do no good.

And give them possibility of reeducation and reinstatement in their own place once they are clean again. The suppliers will be in more trouble if they see the demand dwindle while they will be more happy if the law reduces the competition.

paolo vidoli
Chesapeake, va

Dear FRONTLINE,

What beasts lie beneath our skin that allow us, for the sake of fleeting comforts, to take a living, breathing, vibrant human being and reduce them to nothing more than mere inmaterial flesh. I do not know what the solution is. I had thought that these acts had been left behind in the past. The Greeks, the Romans. Not today, not now.

I cannot release this feeling of helplessness. Maybe that in itself is the problem, the helplessness. The helplessness that leads to the unwillingness to do nothing, to sit idly by and not offer a helping hand.

This has changed my perspective of life. In the comfort of my home I was shocked to realize how blessed and ungrateful I have been. In the comfort of my home I realized that I had been that person whom may have not offered that helping hand. I do not know what else to say. I am shocked, disturbed, disgusted, angry and frustrated. Yet deep inside I know that there is hope. There has to be.

Carlos Andres Ramirez-Mondragon
Baltimore, MD

Dear FRONTLINE,

I have traveled to Moldova many times and the people there are just the best, but trafficing is such a problem and the gov't does little to educate these young women about it.

I think that education can help reduce trafficking...in these countries, but I know it will not stop without many other changes.

Minneapolis, MN

Dear FRONTLINE,

I watched in horror as the Sex Slaves show progressed; it was nightmarish. But the ultimate nightmare was the producers, for whatever 'moral' reasons they used to justify their action, let that poor woman RETURN to the sex trade voluntarily...when her sole motivation was money....as if the producers couldn't have found enough money for her brother's surgery in their own pocketbooks....good lord, we save whales, don't we? I am sickened by having watched a film in which vicariously, I have participated in letting that woman go back to the trade....why offer a chance for us to donate money now (on the website) when the harm has been done to her? Personally, my belief is that to have known of her situation and done nothing to stop her from returning to the trade, is as much of a sex crime as the ones that were shown in the documentary.

Ann Schubert
Pittsburgh, PA

Dear FRONTLINE,

I feel your program did a diservice to its viewers by failing to even mention the plight of sexual workers in Western Europe and North America. This problem is not just in countries with weak or corrupt governments or merely in areas of the world where poverty is rampant. The suffering caused by the sale of women as sexual objects can and does occur anywhere where men are willing to pay for it.

Michael Williams
Acton, MA

Dear FRONTLINE,

How could they let that little boy die? How much could it have been to pay for his operation? $500.00? $1000.00? Were you operating under some stupid rule that you could not interfere? Whatever the cost was to let that women go back and sell herself so her brother could live and the crew doing nothing disgusts me. The fact that he died left me feeling empty. What is the point of reporting and then doing nothing? It was like the prime directive or something. I am very perplexed how a human being could let that happen when they obviously have the means to help. They see it first hand and yet still the boy dies! Was that for dramatic affect?! The criminals while reprehensible and deserve severe punishment at least are animals through and through...what is the crews excuse? Ratings?

Shame on you..I hope you can understand where I am coming from on this and would like an explanation. Not that I really expect one.

Nick Galicz
Cleveland, Ohio

Dear FRONTLINE,

I would like to wholeheartedly thank the producer and the rest of the crew members for making this important film. I myself am from Russia and it is shocking and depressing for me to see that not much is done about stopping the sex trafficking in Russia and that trafficker gets 5 years on probation! It is also devastating to see the lives of those women, who are wives, sisters, mothers, etc. As a graduate student in clinical psychology and as a human being, I am wondering what services are available for those women to help them cope with horrible events that happened to them? Is there any help for them?

Thank you again!

Irina Komarovskaya
Charlottesville, Virginia

Dear FRONTLINE,

This is absolutely disgusting. I can't believe how many people in the world turn a deaf ear to the cries of these women. THESE ARE PEOPLE, NOT COMMODITIES! I have a daughter and so help me...if anyone did what VLAD did...I will find them. This is absolutely heartbreaking and mind boggling, how awful this world has become. I have been trying to think of what I can do, start or how can I help these people, especially children drawn into this horror of life?

Columbia, MO

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am baffled that the producers of this documentary sat back and let Tania go back to Turkey to prostitute herself to obtain the $200.00 needed for her brothers' surgery, rather than pay her for the interviews she gave them, thereby saving her from having to return. Five Hundred for the interviews might have saved her brothers life, and certainly would have spared her that final indignity.

Karen Gardella
Waukegan, IL

Dear FRONTLINE,

Who are the men who are "purchasing" these women, we need to put an end to the consumers so this shocking crime can end.

Annapolis, MD

Dear FRONTLINE,

I can believe that this happens. This may be shocking to many, but all over the world this is happening. What is shocking is that the people who are abducting are people that know the women. Money has long overpowered morals. People like goods have become a commodity. I was wondering if this should be something that the UN should consider as a world threat.

Michael Walker
Emporia, Kansas

home + introduction + site map + join the discussion + mapping the story + what needs to be done
making of this film + estimating the numbers + producer's chat + dvd/vhs & transcript + press reaction + credits
privacy policy + FRONTLINE home + WGBH + PBS

posted feb. 7, 2006

FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of wgbh educational foundation.
photo copyright ©2006 getty creative
web site copyright 1995-2014 WGBH educational foundation

SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

FRONTLINE on

ShopPBS