A two woman rock musical unfolded like a mystery to reveal a dark story about the realities of sex trafficking.
Shameless Hussy Productions brought its musical Love Bomb to Williams Lake to the community Wednesday evening following a show earlier to students at Lake City Secondary.
RCMP Constable Sam Nakatsu says he absolutely believes that it has an impact on students.
“The feedback that we received after the school show, a lot of people didn’t know what the term love bomb means-to be showered with gifts, to be showered with compliments. Now at least people know that term, they know what to look for, they understand that if somebody reaches out from the Twitter verse and says you’re beautiful and showers you with gifts, they have various reasons why they’re doing that.”
“The awareness that we brought today is huge.”
Nakatsu says that part of the reason that the RCMP and the Boys and Girls Club Harm Reduction Coordinator, Jordan Davis brought the musical at the bringing school year, is so that they can do follow up sessions throughout the school year to help bring even more awareness.
He says although it is too difficult to say what the stats are locally when it comes to sex trafficking, it does happen and that they do know of youth that have been trafficked.
“We might not see it as a big bold headline saying youth sex trafficked, but it might be a youth missing. Everytime time that kids go online today’s day and age and they are chatting with somebody they think is a teenager might be a 50-year-old man from the Ukraine who wants to get them over there and traffick them.”
Nakatsu says sex trafficking in which anyone is vulnerable is happening here whether people want to believe it or not.
Although sex trafficking does happen in person more is happening online with parents being completely unaware. One of the most common scenarios when it comes to social media is that a youth with an open Facebook account has their photos liked by a complete stranger which in turn attracts their attention and opens the doors to conversation.
Davis says that out of every education session that they do they ask the youth if they have people on their social media they don’t know.
“Every single time they tell us yes. So that to us is extremely concerning.”
Nakatsu says that parents need to understand that anything that their child, youth, teen is on that connects to the internet is a door to the outside world, and that’s it’s important that they begin the conversations with them about it.
He says every parent should have their kid’s facebook password, and ensure that their settings cannot allow them to be friended by just anybody.
“Have an open honest conversation. If you start right from the beginning of okay yes you want to have a Facebook account or an Instagram account these are the rules behind it and this is why, and be respectful. If you start from that and build that base up, then I think you’re going to build a more social media aware teen or youth.”
Davis says that they talk to youth a lot about gut feelings and how their feelings are always right.
“I remember being a teenager and wanting to be liked by our friends. I think being brave enough if you think something is up with your friend then confronting them about it,” says Amanda Testini who played Justine in Love Bomb.
“I know that sometimes confronting our friends can be the scariest thing because we all want to be liked and stay in our clique, what ever it is. Just be brave and don’t be afraid to say something to them because chances are that they’ll say more to you as a friend than to an adult.”
Daune Campbell who used be artistic director of Shameless Hussy Productions says that they have a mission to tell provocative stories about women to inspire the hand that rocks the cradle to rock the world.
She says that Deb Pickman and Renée laci who were teaching an afternoon school program at Templeton high school in Vancouver had a young girl who was trafficked and managed to get out.
“Reza Moazami in 2015 was the first conviction for human and sex trafficking. We were actually able to get some of the transcripts from some the girls that testified against him. So some of the facts in the show are real, but the characters are fictional. We did not base them on any one single character.”
Love Bomb which was also shown to students and the community in Quesnel on Tuesday will be in Vanderhoof today.