Four young girls sit in a dingy, cramped room. Two men look at them – the pimp who is a fairly young chap, the other much older, and clearly a customer. The atmosphere is so dark – both literally and figuratively – that the pimp turns on the flashlight on his phone so that the customer can see the girls’ faces, and take his pick. Enter a team of police officials and an NGO worker, barging through the dim and cramped rooms and corridors in a raid and rescue, even as the young man escapes with three of the minor girls. With the rescue of a reluctant Sani (played by Neetu), the fourth girl who is left behind, Chosen Few, a short fictional film (based on a real story) by The Viral Fever, begins.
The premise of the 21-minute film, directed by Rohit Mittal, is “to shed light on the importance of a robust criminal justice system in freeing children caught in commercial sexual exploitation.” And so, a press release adds, it looks at the ‘chosen few’ who work in rescue and rehabilitation of children forced into sexual exploitation. Made in consultation with International Justice Mission (IJM), an organisation that works against bonded labour and trafficking, it is based on the story of Sani (not her real name), who was rescued by IJM when she was 17 in 2013, and went on to help the organisation and law enforcement rescue seven others girls.
By the makers’ own admission, the film is a “celebration of the accomplishments of a system that has successfully restored over 100 survivors of sex trafficking in over two decades.” However, as a viewer, I couldn’t help but feel that Chosen Few paints the picture of an ideal case scenario – where cases don’t get buried in red tape; follow-ups are not delayed long enough for traffickers and pimps to escape, relocate and victimise more girls; where everyone in the law enforcement, civil society and bureaucracy do the right thing, keeping the survivors’ best interests at heart. It looks at scenarios where rescue, rehabilitation and healing are successful.
For instance, we see Sani, despite her initial hesitation, start to open up at what can be assumed to be a centre with other rescued girls. She has nightmares, eats birthday cake, breaks down cathartically while playing a dhol with the other girls, and then agrees to help the police and social workers in going to another raid to help identify the other girls who were with her.
While these instances show her healing and growing, the narrative fails to establish the period of time over which this is taking place. We do get to know at the end of the film that the real Sani’s rescue and her act of accompanying the police for the next raid to rescue her fellow survivors had at least a two month gap. In the film, however, this timeline is not clearly established. And this is partly what takes away from the film’s impact.
The earnest police official who leads the rescue (Abhay Joshi played by Vikram Kochhar) and the resilient social worker (Sheela, played by Faezeh Jalali) are convincing enough in their characters. However, there is little more to their characters beyond these roles, which prevents the viewer from empathising with them, especially in a short film.
There are some things that the film does well though. For one, it does a good job of not taking away from Sani’s story and her angst while focusing on these ‘chosen ones’ and their teams. It also shows the grey areas around rescue and rehabilitation – those rescued are not always happy about it.
Sani, for instance, is very upset that she is away from her friend Anita, another girl who was with her in the sex trade. All that matters to her initially is to go back to Anita, even though it would mean more exploitation. It shows that those rescued need not always be over the moon about it, and that human beings form complex relationships even in the direst situations. There are also references to how young girls are brainwashed and subjugated by their exploiters. Another praiseworthy aspect is that Chosen Ones stays away from reinforcing gratitude and benevolence in the relationship between the rescued and rescuers. Those rescued do not owe gratitude to the system - it is the system and society's duty to protect them, and their failure which pushes them into abuse in the first place.
However, the discourse on trafficking itself has grown beyond raid and rescue, which Chosen Ones should have reflected. I wish the film had paid more attention to the clientele of abusers, and the vital role they play in fuelling demand for commercial sexual exploitation of children. “Everyone wants the young girls because they don’t speak up,” explains a sex worker in the film. There is a growing movement to book the 'customers' – especially in the case of children, which clearly incriminates the former under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
The idea of the film – celebrating the ‘chosen ones’ who rescue girls from commercial sexual exploitation – is a promising one. However, what makes them ‘chosen’ is that they continue to work in a unjust system to bring justice to the vulnerable and exploited. While Chosen Ones shows the people who strive to right the wrongs, I wish it could have shown the imperfect and flawed system which makes up a lot of their battle as well.
The film was released on April 21, which is National Civil Services Day.
Views expressed are author's own.