Freedom film

This film is fiction, but the young woman’s story is based on the real-life experiences of girls who have been trafficked into the sex industry in India. In particular, we were inspired by Shiney’s story:

Shiney thought she was buying a dream. Instead, she had been sold a living nightmare.

Shiney lost her mother when she was eight years old. As a child she worked in a factory and faced daily beatings from her father and stepmother. She was desperate to escape, so when she met a man who promised her riches and a new life in the Middle East, she believed him.

He took her money and sold her into Mumbai’s red light district.

After nine years of working as a prostitute, Shiney called out to God. She felt that God answered her prayers by sending the Aruna team – Christians working in partnership with Tearfund – who befriended her and showed her the way out.

In time, Shiney looked back at her life and the people who had hurt her: her father, her stepmother, her pimp, even the brothel owner who had forced her to have an abortion. She was able to forgive. ‘I felt as though a dark cloud and a huge weight that I’d been carrying for years had lifted,’ she says.