Road Kill

My interest in Human Trafficking had originally come about around 8 years ago when I read a few articles at the time about the problem becoming a rising phenomenon in Scotland. The issue was something I knew about: the fact that it was happening North of the border was surprising to me and, as I've realised, still very surprising to most people now.

We all assume these things only happen in London or across Europe. However it became a far more urgent 'story' rather than an 'issue' when I came into contact with a young woman whom I was involved with through a charity in Glasgow, and who stayed with me for a short time. The 'issue' quite literally was on my doorstep.

This young woman had been trafficked from Africa to England then eventually Glasgow at the age of 13. She confided her story in me: at that point, I felt a far more urgent need to tell her story, since I knew most people would not realise that it could be possible. Essentially she was a slave, sold into prostitution here, and kept hidden in a flat in Glasgow for years, not being allowed to leave until she has paid back a vast sum of money referred to as 'their debt' to the trafficker for bringing them here.

It seemed inconceivable. I started to do more research via The Refugee Council , online and even traveled to Italy to visit an Anti-Trafficking unit
and to learn more about the global situation.

I would be careful to point out that The character in the story is not simply the story of the young girl whom I met, but is an amalgamation of many similar stories, inspired by hearing hers; her identity is protected at every level; country of origin is changed, family details, the journey here, characteristics; I had to be extremely careful in respecting her anonymity.

I was very aware that there have already been plays in recent years about trafficking, and there have been some major film releases on the subject too. I was sensitive to the fact that people may think 'ah we've heard about that already' and thus further reinforce the erroneous notion that it's just 'an issue' somewhere out there not connected to my life'.

So the site specific aspect I felt was something very different which couldn't be achieved through film nor through a conventional theatrical production.I felt that by placing the audience IN the flat with the girl, we place the audience right at the heart of her story.

You are in a tenement block in a familiar area, but stuck in an anything but a familiar world; I wanted to reinforce that this is quite literally happening quite possibly in a flat right next to you right now; it's not in brothels, or some red light district, it's in domestic locations. The pimps at the helm of the organisations will own many flats across the cities and will deliberately move the girls from one to another all the time,so that even were neighbours to suspect anything, by the time police may or may not investigate, the girls would have been moved on, they leave no trace, their existence not noted anywhere.

They are here illegally for starters, and to all legal intents and purposes 'do not exist.' By using the 'site specificness' of the location I have deliberately removed the safety of that distance you can have in a larger more conventional theatrical space, and have tried to make the experience far more immersive. I want the audience to shift from viewing the main character as someone separate from themselves, but rather be IN her story with her. Even the bus trip is part of the 'site specificity' in that we are all cast as 'punters on a bus' whilst listening to a happy chattering young girl thinking she is on her way to a new exciting life. Any one of us may have sat next to a girl who is about to be taken to a nightmarish world she has no concept of...we may have already passed them in our city and had no idea; so the city itself is also 'the site' as it were, as you travel through it, thinking you know the streets.

I guess there may be an element of wanting to share something you have 'witnessed' with others; in a way you are saying, 'look I know this happens for real, I've met these people first hand, this is part of our world, our city and I think we should know about and talk about that'; but at the same time I would avoid any allusion to a courtroom; I am presenting a story (one of many amalgamated into one person) but I am never aiming to chastise my audience for not knowing more about it. The very fact that they come is evidence that they are already interested and open to empathising and learning more; I really hate when theatre rants at the actual people who are taking the time to be there.

I strived within this piece not to make it preachy or black and white; I am not demonising men for using prostitutes - Prostitution and the sexual politics thereof is a whole subject area in itself and it's not the point of this play. I am just raising the point that by going to prostitutes, there is an increasing chance that that woman may be a trafficked woman, and what does that men to them, to us as a society...is there indeed a difference between paying for sex with a woman who has to some extent chosen that profession,and to pay for sex with a woman who is to all extents and purposes a slave, with no say in her being here; and how would that ever be proven, and should that man be punished if he genuinely didn't realise?

In Italy, there is a huge demand for African women, and women are trafficked by the thousands; they literally line the sides of the dual carriageways, it's mind bogglingly overt; and yet many Italian men have tried to pay the girl's pimps to allow them to escape...or have asked them to wed.

n the play, we touch upon this very skewed, misplaced 'compassion' where one character wants to 'save' the trafficked girl... but there is ambiguity there as to who that is actually serving... this 'hero' role is one that is common yet dubious. I have tried to raise awkward questions within the piece which have no easy answers.

I think it's important that people know that this is something that happens specifically here, and yet it is absolutely not a piece of verbatim theatre. There is a visual and textual poetry to the piece which I hope conveys wider,and complex ideas; I see the themes as being far more universal and broad.

For me, the play is also about the commodification of people generally; the sex trade is just one trade in which people are being exploited, there are many many more, and equally difficult to pin down.

If these girls are feeding a market demand, then blame must lie with the punters who are buying them;and yet how are they able to tell? Since the trafficked girls are extremely forcefully drilled in making it appear as though they are happy to be working as prostitutes and actually enjoying the job, many men are deluded into thinking that they are having sex with a willing partner.

Questions of choice in all of our lives; and I suppose just throwing that big question out there; how can civilised societies still be entertaining an underground industry which is basically a slave trade? It's happening all across the West in ever increasing numbers, it hasn't left us. Are we always doomed to exploit others because we can? At which point along the 'food chain' do we remove any responsibility from ourselves?

In a way the punters turning a blind eye to the fact that they may be encountering a trafficked woman when they use a prostitute is only further along on the same spectrum whereby we all turn blind eyes to the clothes we buy from firms we know have sweatshops, or food from countries who are ruthlessly destroying other countries/people in order to farm on the land they desire; the people shot at borders transporting our recreational drugs!

It's actually very hard to AVOID benefiting from the exploitation of other human beings in our every day lives, but surely we have to keep alert to it and keep asking how we can avoid, be aware of, and remain engaged with/not just shut down because it all becomes too far removed from us.