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Taken: Fact vs. Fiction

1/12/2015

12 Comments

 
Now that Taken 3 is released and raking in the box office profits, I think this is a good time to revisit the premise of the Taken series. How well did Taken actually represent the reality of sex trafficking? (I’ll give you a clue: not well at all.)

(If you haven’t seen Taken, Taken 2, or Taken 3, be warned – here be spoilers.)

Here’s a description of the premise:

In the original Taken (2008), a wealthy 17-year-old white girl on vacation with a friend in Paris meets a handsome young man who offers to share a cab from the airport. He turns out to be part of an Albanian gang and tells his fellow gang members where she’s staying. She is violently kidnapped, kept in a drug-induced stupor, and sold as a permanent sex slave at a very fancy auction. Her father, who just so happens to be a retired CIA agent, (and who was on the phone with her during the kidnapping, conveniently) uses his considerable skills to find his daughter, brutalizing and torturing his way through Europe.
Picture
So let’s talk about some of these details:

1. She’s a wealthy white girl.
Traffickers prey on the vulnerable, and most often the vulnerable are socioeconomically disadvantaged, come from minority populations, are in some way disenfranchised (homeless, runaway, in foster care, etc.), and/or have mental or physical disabilities. The girl in the movie has none of those vulnerabilities. Of course, sex trafficking can happen to anyone. Given the right circumstances, traffickers will take advantage of whomever they can. All I’m saying is, the movie doesn't represent the typical scenario. The film is flashy and intense; sex trafficking is insidious and manipulative.

2: She meets a handsome young man who gets information from her and passes it along to his fellow gang members.
This is totally true. Traffickers aren't always sketchy old dudes with vans; in fact, they rarely are. And even the ones who are, their game is manipulation. Traffickers know young women are more likely to talk to handsome, charming young men. They know how to appeal to a person’s particular insecurities and vulnerabilities. 

(In Taken 2, the father of one of the kidnappers he killed takes Badass Dad and his wife hostage. In Taken 3, the wife is murdered, and Badass Dad is framed for it. Trite action movie premises aside, we’re going to focus on Taken 1.)
Picture
It's really never this obvious.
They also know that you can catch more flies with honey, which brings me to my next point…

3: She’s violently kidnapped.
This is really quite rare. First of all, kidnapping is a crime of its own and traffickers try to keep their hands clean. They’re far more likely to manipulate people into coming with them willingly (at least at first). That way, if it comes to a legal scenario, they might be able to talk their way out of it. “It was consensual!”

Second, if you kidnap someone violently, you have to control them violently – tie them up, drug them, beat them into submission, etc. If you charm someone into falling in love with you, then they’re putty in your hands.

It is a horrible truth that it’s much easier to control someone when their feelings are involved, especially when that someone is a teenager. It’s disgusting, but that’s how it works.

4: She’s kept in a drug-induced stupor.
This depends on the situation, but let’s be real: drugs aren't cheap. If traffickers can control someone using less expensive means (again, like manipulation), they will. (And they’ll sell the drugs instead. It’s all about the moolah.)

Picture
Traffickers are all about the dough. They made $150 billion dollars in 2013 according to the ILO. (Click the picture to read more about that.)
5: She’s sold at auction as a permanent sex slave.
This is rare. Traffickers see their victims as money-making assets. You can sell the same person a lot of times and keep making money from them. Selling them once and letting them go decreases a trafficker’s ability to make a profit.

6: Her father happens to be a retired CIA agent.
Sure, this is kinda fun for an action movie premise, but it bears no relationship to real life. More importantly, I want to address a subtle danger here: this gives the impression that anyone with the right combination of determination and badass-ery can just go storming in and rescue people. Let me be perfectly clear: that is extremely dangerous. Not only for the one doing the storming, but also for the people under that trafficker’s control. Traffickers are powerful, dangerous people. They’re very attached to their money and they have no scruples about dealing with people who get in their way. It’s best to gather information and give it to authorities who know how to handle it safely. This is not the time or the place to be an action hero.

The bottom line is this: Taken is a cool action movie that bears little to no resemblance to the everyday reality of sex trafficking. It’s given a lot of people the wrong impressions and, as fun as it is that Liam Neeson gets to be an action hero now, those wrong impressions are pretty damaging to actual anti-trafficking efforts. It’s important to separate fact from fiction and approach the problem in a realistic and meaningful way. Because life isn't Hollywood and we aren't action heroes. 

Rachel Boyce
Director of Operations

PS: If you’d like some more facts about sex trafficking, check out this useful infographic. The sources it lists at the bottom are also good places to go for more info.

Update:
PPS: Thanks to my friend Ryan for asking this question: what about the brutality? Yes, depending on the disposition of their trafficker(s), sex trafficking victims can be brutally beaten. If you want to learn more about this (warning: difficult subject matter ahead!), Google the term "gorilla pimp."

12 Comments
AP
3/26/2017 10:50:39 am

Thanks for this article. I was really curious after seeing the Taken movies. They reminded me of when I was 13 staying with relatives in Germany. We went to a really big public swimming pool and my relatives told me to be very careful And watch out for men that would kidnap me to sell to rich middle eastern men. I thought they were just being silly, but now after watching the movies I wondered if it might be a real thing.
Even though this is not a realistic depiction of what happens, it's good that movies like this draw awareness to the issues of sex trafficking.

Reply
Bryan Fuller
6/8/2018 01:28:19 am

In reaching for a "science fiction type Script control" novel .,. I was just curious to your points that you made. I was hoping to add this to my research?

Reply
Steve link
5/23/2017 01:17:35 am

Hello guys, You can buy Sex Toys here at http://www.love365.ph our store is located in Makati Ave. In Front of A-venue Mall. The Philippine Leading Sex Toys Store.

Reply
lilith link
9/23/2020 01:00:32 pm

oh hey there mister sex trafficker.

Reply
Melissa
8/4/2017 07:33:29 am

This did actually happen to me in Paris in the 80s before the movie. An attempt was made to abduct my friend ... I managed to stop it by jumping into the car and later help from Irish back-packers (not Liam Neeson) ... the policy told us we were the victim of attempted abduction to middle eastern sex-slave trafikking ring. My friend was the ideal type petite and blond - when the movie Taken came out I finally believed what the police told us - didn't seem real. The adbuction of tourist girls from the street never to be seen again is a known thing and absolutely true.

Reply
Okay
7/14/2022 01:21:42 am

r/thatreallyhappened

Any other bullshit made up stories you want to share with us

Reply
Called to Defend
5/31/2018 10:58:28 am

Can you check the link that's supposed to go to an infographic? It goes to an ad instead.

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Ryan
5/5/2019 02:01:58 am

An informative and well researched article! Thank you for being the one to correct the misleading information many people take as factual in that movie. Keep doing what you do - you are a saint :)

Reply
TK
4/1/2020 10:28:52 am

Are you sure your points are correct? All of the trafficking rings in the UK went on for years with the majority of victims being middle class white girls abducted from neighborhoods by Middle Eastern men; and of course, some of them were sold off to rich men in the Middle East and Turkey.

Recently my daughter's school was being stalked by a young woman that was taking pictures of the kids. She didn't have a criminal record so they couldn't do anything. They eventually arrested her on trespassing because it was a private school and I had to have a meeting with the local law enforcement and the school administration because my daughter was one of several girls who they had found pictures of in the young woman's phone.

The law enforcement told me that I should watch my daughter closely because she was tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. They told me low level traffickers liked girls that fit my daughter's profile because they fetched very high prices with larger level traffickers and the Mexican cartels. I pulled my daughter from the school after that, but nothing I have seen in Europe and with what LE matched your points. I'm not saying your points are incorrect because I have seen the same thing, but you've isolated an entire group that may actually be happening.

It's sad because that means you're redirecting attention from finding girls who really do get abducted. This is why some trafficking rings went on so long in the UK, because people were afraid of going after their pimps and predators for fear of being called racists. The local LE in the UK admitted this. Your article saddens me.

Reply
Faishal Rachman
9/29/2020 09:39:02 am

Taken is french movie, it's not hollywood

Reply
Dave
6/6/2021 02:00:39 am

Going to the cops might get you some results IF you are in the states or Western Europe. If the girl gets kidnapped in Central America or Eastern Europe however- going to the cops may be the worst thing to do, as they are often in on it, or getting paid by the criminal gangs to look the other way. At best they will probably give a half-assed attempt to find her and then go back to watching football. Unless you can afford to hire your own gang of mercenaries and pay off dozens of corrupt officials- you should probably get yourself a lot of surveillance gear, and gather intel from the shadows until you can pin down her location. Then get yourself a suppressed sniper rifle running subsonic 300blk, and a suppressed 22 pistol. Fighting them hand to hand is likely not realistic for you or anyone but the best trained killers, so putting a bullet in their heads before they ever see you might be the only way to get her back alive. Assuming they are of average intelligence for criminal gang members, and have average opsec, you can probably move fast enough to catch them unprepared. Go from room to room putting two rounds in the head of every military-age male in the building, and hope they don't get a shot off to alert the others. You should already know from your surveillance when they go to sleep, and the best time to make your move. You want to hit them when they are all high/drunk and passed out. Move fast and do not hesitate to kill everyone.

Reply
Lmfao
7/14/2022 01:24:45 am

Holy shit we've got a regular from r/imabadass

What other idiotic military revenge fantasy porn would you like to share with us you fucking neckbeard Harper weirdo?

Reply



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