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Bombay Sex Trade: The Day My God Died

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With support from: Lowell Institute
Date and time
Thursday, December 9, 2004

Laura Leder and Brigitte Cazalis Collins expose the child sex trade industry in Bombay after a screening of * *, an independent film on the same issue. According to the United Nations, 2,500 women and children throughout the world disappear every day to be sold into sexual slavery. Many of these are young Nepalese girls who are trafficked, often by someone they trust, and sold into sexual servitude in Bombay's nightmarish red-light district Kamthipura--a filthy, teeming sexual marketplace, known as "the cages," of over 200,000 young women and children. Sexual servitude is also oftentimes a death sentence. In Bombay alone, 90 new cases of HIV infection are reported every hour. The victims are getting younger. Two decades ago, most women in the Indian brothels were in their twenties or thirties; today, the average age is 14. "The Day My God Died" puts a human face on these abstract numbers as the documentary recounts the stories of several Nepalese girls who were forced into the international child sex trade. In their own words, the girls tell about the day traffickers took each of them described as "the day my God died." Andrew Levine's powerful, unforgettable *The Day My God Died*, is hosted by Susan Sarandon and narrated by Tim Robbins.

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BA, magna cum laude, University of Michigan; J.D., DePaul. Professor Lederer is senior advisor on human trafficking for the US Department of State. Professor Lederer is the founder and former director of the Protection Project at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. As director of the project, she oversaw research on the trafficking of women and children, including foreign and national laws on trafficking and surrounding activities, country-by-country human rights reports on trafficking, and survivor stories. Professor Lederer originally founded the Projection Project as a Research Fellow for the University of Minnesota Law School. She then directed the Project from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government before going to Johns Hopkins. Professor Lederer has written several articles regarding the trafficking of women and children and is a frequent speaker on the issue as well.
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Brigitte Cazalis-Collins founded the Friends of Maiti Nepal as the official representative of Maiti Nepal in the United States in 2001. She and her husband, Joseph H. Collins, have lived and worked in Nepal intermittently for more than twenty years. In 2001, Cazalis-Colins devoted her efforts to the struggle against human trafficking, increasing awareness of sex trafficking, and raising funds for Maiti Nepal. She has also directed and implemented major outreach projects assisting refugees and women both in the U.S. and in Nepal. In the U.S. she was a member of the founding board of the Tibetan Resettlement Project, which provided sponsors, housing, employment and counseling to Tibetan families who immigrated to the U.S. under the Immigration Act of 1992.
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