When nobody is looking

The Gothenburg Film Festival is over but RealStars continues to view films on the theme of Fair Sex and its opposites. One film that has touched us is “When Nobody is Looking” – a film about child sex trafficking from ECPAT, directed by Ulla Lemberg and David Herdies.

The film tells us something about the various aspects of the global child trafficking but also about the positive work against child trafficking. It is made clear that the problem exists in all countries, including Sweden.

When Nobody is Looking is a documentary in episodes about child sex trafficking around the world. First we meet two Swedish investigators who identify photos of a child being raped by two men. In the next episode we travel to Romania where a girl tells how she was offered work in Italy but when there was exploited as a sex-slave. After that we come to Cambodia and follow an organisation working against child sex tourism; we also see them arrest a man buying sex from a boy in a hotel room. In South Sudan we meet a woman working to save children from growing up in brothels in the capital. Finally we meet a Swedish man who was exploited at the age of 10 by an older man who gained the boy’s trust and then used him sexually.

The film is very bleak and cold from the first scene and at the end there is a feeling of emptiness. It is very powerful documentary about a subject that continues to be topical. We at RealStars recommend that you see the film to gain an insight into how global human trafficking operates.