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Sound of Freedom film is profiting off disinformation about trafficking [1]

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Date: 2023-08

This review contains spoilers. Frankly though, this film is so spoiled already that it shouldn’t bother you.

Sound of Freedom, released last month, is the latest Hollywood film claiming to provide a window into the world of human trafficking. It’s based on the alleged real-life activities of Tim Ballard, a retired US Customs and Border Protection agent and the founder of Operation Underground Railroad. OUR is a US-based anti-trafficking NGO famous (or notorious) for its vigilante-style rescue attempts and history of false claims.

For those who have not or will not see it, the story revolves around Ballard’s quest to rescue a young girl from her traffickers – a plight he learned about from her younger brother, whom he coincidentally rescued from a paedophile. The twisting, adrenaline-packed path to success that comes next isn’t that dissimilar to Taken, the (completely fictional) anti-trafficking action classic from 2008 starring Liam Neeson.

After learning of the girl, Ballard lies his way into Colombia, where he stages an elaborate rescue mission involving a fake sex hotel. When the young girl is not among those rescued, he boldly travels into the jungle to find a criminal so dangerous that even the military refuses to touch him. After gaining entrance by posing as a doctor, Ballard kills a trafficker, rescues the girl, and leaves a bunch of other victims behind as he makes his escape.

As professionals with over 15 years of experience each, we feel compelled to add our voices to the chorus calling this film out. Sound of Freedom’s sensational depiction of trafficking, dehumanisation of survivors, and rock ‘n roll attitude to their rescue is as seductive as it is misleading for movie goers. It gives them false information while inspiring them to join the fight against trafficking. And that combination is extremely harmful to the real work of supporting survivors that we do.

Just enough truth to hide the harm

Credit where credit is due: the film shows how hard these cases can sometimes be, and how difficult it is to not want to do everything possible to help victims. This serves mainly as a vehicle to valorise Ballard in the film, but it’s there nonetheless. Likewise, promises of opportunities such as a modelling gig that turn into exploitation are a fair portrayal of how trafficking can happen.

Aside from this, any foundation in the real world is quickly discarded in favour of roughly two hours of predictable tropes and sensationalism. The film opens with a montage of small children being snatched off the street and ends with a lone girl in a white dress, playing a drum (ostensibly to the beat of the sound of freedom). In between we get victims marked with tattoos by traffickers, brave white men sacrificing their careers to save black and brown children from black and brown perpetrators, and infantilised victims. Like most action movies, it’s a celebration of the hero figure – the lone individual who goes outside the bounds of the law and procedure to make up for the failings of governments that refuse to do what is necessary.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/sound-of-freedom-tim-ballard-operation-underground-railroad-trafficking-film-review/

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