Imagine eating, sleeping and working in a small, claustrophic cell with two other men for ten years and being expected to produce handcrafts for your owner.
Whilst visiting India, actress Ashley Judd, met one such labour slave in a slum outside Delhi, who produced the most beautiful handiwork. Recalling their time together she explains the inspiration behind his incredible work.
Ashley is celebrated for her roles in a number of popular movies, including opposite Harrison Ford in the recent Crossing Over and Jim Cavaziel in the thriller High Crimes. Sheis also involved in exposing the plight of the poor and exploited and championing social justice through her role as the YouthAIDS Global Ambassador.
When Ashley asked this man how he kept himself going he told her that pride in his work was the key. “Here he was,” she said, “A slave, who copes and deals and survives by taking pride in his work and by making something beautiful that he can send out into the world!”
Call and Response is captivatingly impelling; capturing the scope and perplexity of one of our generation’s greatest frontiers.
By highlighting what they call ‘the world’s 27 million dirtiest secrets,’ this award winning doco tackles the front line of human slavery: sex slavery, labour slavery, child soldiers, and child slavery.
It is an eloquently styled ‘line in the sand’. A declaration, taking the form of a ‘Rockumentary,’ that says enough is enough.
American Musician, Justin Dillon has seen success among music circuits with his band Tremolo. He first encountered the issue of human trafficking during a Russian tour when his interpreter and other young girls, shared with him the many "opportunities" that were being offered them and of invitations to come to West. Dillon investigated what proved to be bogus job opportunities and was appalled by the extent to which traffickers would go to lure innocent young girls. The promises of exotic destinations and training for farcical jobs; as well as the ease with which these girls, hopeful of a better life, succumbed, stirred him to action. “I always wondered what would have happened if I had not spoken to them. That feeling never left,” he told one interviewer.
Without experience in film it was dogged persistence and a belief in what he was doing that eventually enabled Justin to finance, largely through donations, direct and produce Call and Response.
His belief that ‘most of the popular music today is rooted in the music of the slave fields in America,’ inspired his plight. The title itself, in fact, comes from the American slave fields. ‘A Call is someone sharing his oppression, a
Response is someone saying I hear you, and together we will overcome’. The ‘idea of Verse and Chorus,’ the essentials of today’s music, apparently did not exist before the Call and Response.
When Dillon cold called agents, managers and recording artists, he petitioned them with the idea that, ‘popular music owes a debt to the issue of slavery.’ Gradually a groundswell of support grew, including support from actress and activist, Daryl Hannah.
Eventually Madeleine Albright, Ashley Judd, Julia Ormond, Switchfoot, Natasha Bedingfield, Imogen Heap, Moby, Cold War Kids, Five for Fighting, Matisyahu, Talib Kweli, Cornel West and many others, also came on board.
Call and Response gives us the facts but in a uniquely impacting way. As one reviewer explains, “I felt I was watching a documentary and a concert broke out!”
Stories typifying the plight of the many millions enslaved, are told through song and the anecdotes. We learn of the connections between Drug, Arms and People traffickers, and the billions of dollars of profit that have extinguished the consciences of those that seek to gain from the trade.
“Slavery is the perfect crime,” says British actress Julia Ormond, who has starred opposite Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall and Harrison Ford in Sabrina. “When you buy a person and you set them to work you own them and their entire productive capacity. If you sell a drug you have sold it; it is gone. You can sell people again and again and again.”
Madeleine Albright informs us that there are cartels and various organisations across borders who cooperate in order to traffick people and says, “this has to stop!”
Ashley Judd further expands on this: “the system is vast, it is corrupt, it is powerful, it is ruthless; and it’s lethal. The corruption is at the lowest echelons because human trafficking has to exist out in the open so that the demand can access the supply. The men have to know where to go or they don’t generate the economy. So it is the petty officials who are corrupt, as well as the people on the borders who allow them to be porous so that human beings can be trafficked across national lines. And then of course it is corrupt up to the highest levels as well.”
After watching Call and Response we cannot ignore the fact that:
There are more slaves today than ever before in human history;
Slave traders made more money in 2007 than Google, Nike and Starbucks combined;
The slave trade is the ‘single most lucrative commercial enterprise in the world.’
Traffickers expertly entrap their victims through violence and emotional manipulation. Rape is often used to destroy self worth, especially in Asia. By rendering girls worthless or impure they are able to shame them into submitting to their new world. Drugs are also used, ensnaring them through addiction. In fact, any method that will ‘systematically crush and destroy wills’ is employed.
Exhaustingly, the world of slavery has many tales of devastation; they can be unbearable. Call and Response, however, offers an opportunity to be part of a bigger solution.
LOOKING FOR SOLUTIONS
“There is a certain wistfulness about the past,” says Gary Haugen, the President and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM) which is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery and oppression. Gary is featured in Call and Response, he explains the way that many of those, who long to to make a difference in their world glorify the past, “the struggle for civil rights in the United States; the struggle against slavery ... Gosh, I wish I could have been around during those days ... I wish could have been a hero in some way, even in a small way, during the struggle for justice.”
“All that wistfulness is totally needless,” he says, “because those urgent battles are taking place in our world now.”
Gary Haugen is also the author of several books on faith and human rights and has spoken elsewhere, of the new era he believes the Church is entering into:
“The Spirit is inviting the church into a new era of advocacy that is as significant as the global missions movement of the past 150 years and
the relief and development movement of the past 50 years. The need is no less great, nor the biblical mandate any less fundamental.”1
I believe this movie is an important part of a momentum that is thankfully building at an enormous rate. Definitely a must see! If you are looking for opportunities to transform the world you live in then here is a great starting place.
If you want to be part of the growing 21st Century Abolition Movement, visit the Call and Response website, details below.
There are some simple ways to become involved in the fight against slavery. Find out how your clothes are made. Are they made by slaves? Is the coffee you drink the product of forced labour – or the sugar you put into it? Find out which producers of Cocoa, Cotton, Coffee, Jewellery, Fireworks, Beef, Timber, Sugar, Cell phone components and numerous other consumables are supporting slavery.
As Ashley Judd says, “I don’t want to wear someone else’s despair or eat some else’s tragedy!”
The Call of the oppressed is sounding out for all of us to ‘hear’ and to ‘take notice’ ... to embrace the discomfort that the testimonies and the enormity of the human trafficking problem stirs within. The Response that is hoped for is for each of us to get involved by being informed and by seeking out ways to be part of the solution. Perhaps by praying, learning and becoming wiser so that we can give effectively into areas of greatest need, or by getting behind those who are in the fight to end oppression.
THE AUSTRALIAN RELEASE INFORMATION:
The Australian Premiere was held in Sydney at the end of October. To find this movie in a cinema near your or to host a screening contact Heritage HM
1. Gary Haugen, “Integral Mission & Advocacy,” in Justice, Mercy & Humility: Mission & the Poor, edited by Tim Chester, Paternoster Press, 2002, p. 187.
Bev Holmes-Brown lives in Brisbane, Australia. In 2001 she began Link-Zone, a Christian Resource ministry with a mandate to “Bring the Body together in specific interest areas and to Believe and Pray for the Reformation of Values, Systems and Wisdom.“
In the last nine years Link-Zone has focussed on praying for governments, communities and ministries. ‘We are currently transitioning,’ Bev says, ‘believing the Lord wants us to begin to tell people’s stories. There are so many people living amazing and victorious lives for God against the odds, we want to hear from them, to understand their hearts and glean the treasures that God has laid up in their hearts for our own breakthroughs. Of course we will continue to feature our favourite columnists and will not give up on praying but we believe this is a season where God wants us to identify and clarify the frontlines that need our support. It’s exciting to venture into whatever He lays upon our heart.
Link-Zone does not necessarily endorse the views held by contributors, or by authors of linked websites. The material in the Link-Zone site is provided for your information to assist you in forming your own opinion. It is Link-Zone's hope that you are able to find quality resources that will help you in your research of contemporary debates and issues. We are also unable to endorse the content of external sites linked to via Link-Zone pages & advise that you exercise proper caution when visiting websites you are unfamiliar with.
Call & Response 
When Ashley asked this man how he kept himself going he told her that pride in his work was the key. “Here he was,” she said, “A slave, who copes and deals and survives by taking pride in his work and by making something beautiful that he can send out into the world!” 
American Musician, Justin Dillon has seen success among music circuits with his band Tremolo. He first encountered the issue of human trafficking during a Russian tour when his interpreter and other young girls, shared with him the many "opportunities" that were being offered them and of invitations to come to West. Dillon investigated what proved to be bogus job opportunities and was appalled by the extent to which traffickers would go to lure innocent young girls. The promises of exotic destinations and training for farcical jobs; as well as the ease with which these girls, hopeful of a better life, succumbed, stirred him to action. “I always wondered what would have happened if I had not spoken to them. That feeling never left,” he told one interviewer.
“There is a certain wistfulness about the past,” says Gary Haugen, the President and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM) which is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery and oppression. Gary is featured in Call and Response, he explains the way that many of those, who long to to make a difference in their world glorify the past, “the struggle for civil rights in the United States; the struggle against slavery ... Gosh, I wish I could have been around during those days ... I wish could have been a hero in some way, even in a small way, during the struggle for justice.”
