America’s Sex Traffic Cops

Channel 4

18 Nov

When we see sex traffic cop, Christi first approach Nadia, who is selling sex on the streets of Phoenix, she says she is 19. In fact, she is just 15.

For next to three years, BAFTA winning film-maker Jezza Neumann followed a dedicated and compassionate team of female police officers as they tried to pull Nadia away from the life she had been lured into. In this intimate and compelling film, Neumann gets to know not only Nadia, and another victim, Kat, but also the cops — Amber, Melissa and Christi — going home with them, meeting their kids and learning what drives them to go to such lengths to reach out to girls on the streets who see them as the enemy.

Sex trafficking is the modern face of slavery, yet it remains hidden from sight

"I didn’t even know what sex trafficking was before I was taken" says Kat. While victim Mariah, looks back with deep sadness, "you hope that things will get better and they never do. And one day you wake up and it’s years later and you’re not even the same person."

Through the work of the detectives and the unfolding stories of the survivors, we witness the lengthy court process Kat has to endure as she fights for justice. The cop handling her case has seen victims give up on the process all too often and walk away. She hopes Kat will stay the course.

"Without a victim there's no crime, that's the way the justice system works. So, if Kat was not to participate in this case, the suspects would be out and we’d be done." And as time passes, Nadia comes to accept that Christi, who she saw as a threat when she was first arrested, was in fact trying to help her find a way out.