FIU students to travel to nation’s capital to perform Body & Sold


Florida International University theater students will join students from McKinley High School in Washington, D.C. to present a dramatized staged reading of Body & Sold, a play depicting the stories of 10 victims of human trafficking.

Photo: BodyAndSold.org.

The integrated cast, made up of nine FIU theater majors, one theater alumnus and six students from McKinley High School will perform on Jan. 11, 2011 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

“The day is of particular significance because it has been recognized as national human trafficking day,” said Phillip Church, an associate professor of theater at FIU and director of the play. “This play has resonated with audiences in several cities and uniquely addresses the little talked about issue of human trafficking.”

Body & Sold is a play based on transcripts extracted from interviews conducted by playwright Deborah Fortson in which ten young victims of human trafficking from Southeast Asia share their experiences and journeys of loss of innocence and redemption.

The FIU theater majors auditioned for the project at the beginning of year for the production.

The 2009 U.N. Global Report on Trafficking in Persons shows that, on the plus side, the number of countries implementing the international agreement that addresses trafficking in persons has doubled. Of the 155 countries that were surveyed, over 60 percent had enacted laws following a special U.N. protocol to fight human trafficking adopted in 2003.

On the other hand, many governments still resist enforcement, and nearly half of all nations have yet to bring a single perpetrator of the scourge to justice.

The U.N. study reports that only one victim out of every 100 trafficking cases is rescued. While the most common manifestation of trafficking is sexual exploitation (accounting for 80 percent of the phenomenon), other activities such as forced labor in mines, factories, sweatshops or domestic servitude, as well as child soldiers, are less frequently detected.

More information can be found on the Body & Sold awareness campaign at http://www.bodyandsold.org/. Tickets available at the Kennedy Center Box Office, charge by phone at (202)-467-4600 and at www.kennedy-center.org.

Media Contact: Jean-Paul Renaud at 305-348-2716.

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