Sold
I wrote and directed this piece as a theatre performance and also as a docufilm for UK television. It looks at issues around human trafficking and the many forms that it can take.
While working on ‘til Death do us Part we came across a number of human trafficking cases. In these cases the survivors had sought help for domestic abuse and it had subsequently been learnt that they were also victims of trafficking.
This led to the creation of a new project working with people who had been trafficked and learning about a world previously invisible to me. It was by far one of the most disturbing projects I have ever taken part in.
To realize that human trafficking was not something happening somewhere else, far from me but rather that it was on my own doorstep in so many forms and that unwittingly or not, in many ways I was complicit.
Deciding which stories to use in the play and how to combine them seemed an overwhelming task until a series of stories were shared that mentioned a bus stop. That for me was the key I
needed to unlock the story.
In this piece I wanted people to see the various forms of human trafficking that existed, that it occurred within our community, our town or village, as well as to those people brought in from abroad.
Each story was heart-breaking and the sense of solace and desolation present throughout.
Sold was written after a lengthy period of consultation using Applied Theatre techniques with a number of trafficked victims.
It tells the story of 6 individuals who have all suffered at the hands of traffickers, all coming from different countries, backgrounds and circumstances, all different ages and trafficked in different ways. Their stories collide at a city centre bus stop on a series of winter evenings.
Moving and harrowing all stories are based on true accounts of trafficked victims and bring home the fact that these atrocities are happening under our noses.
The script is based on the stories that were shared and are true testimonies. My purpose was to raise awareness to a wider public about the issue of human trafficking happening in our own area.
Subsequently the Welsh Government commissioned TVO to perform the play to key public service workers who deal with people who have been trafficked.
