Film links 19th century slavery to contemporary bondage [The documentary features an American slave in the 1800s and a modern day Cambodian man]

Vannak Anan Prum, a Cambodian man held as a slave on a Thai fishing boat for four years, is one of 10 Trafficking in Persons Heroes recognized in 2012 by the U.S. Department of State. He is profiled in the film "Journey to Freedom."(Photo: Gannett)

By Mark Curnutte, 
10 October 2012
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The State Department teamed with Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to produce the movie. 10:06PM EST November 9. 2012 - CINCINNATI -- The 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation will be Jan. 1, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wanted to tie President Abraham Lincoln's executive order freeing slaves to the State Department's efforts worldwide to raise awareness of contemporary slavery.

Today, an estimated 27 million people are ensnared in forced labor, sex trafficking and involuntary domestic servitude. The Department of State's first move in linking that to historic American slavery was to contact Cincinnati's National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

"The Freedom Center is the definitive place in the United States to think about slavery, and it's the one authoritative voice of slavery old and new," said Luis C. de Baca, Clinton's senior adviser and director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

The result is "Journey to Freedom," a 35-minute documentary film that tells parallel stories of the capture and enslavement of a 19th century American black man and a 21st century Cambodian. It leans on the Freedom Center's expertise and, in the process, elevates the center's standing as an authority on historic and contemporary abolitionism.

The film was supposed to premiere Oct. 30 in Washington, a screening postponed until Nov. 27 because of Hurricane Sandy. A Freedom Center showing, originally scheduled for early November, is delayed indefinitely.

The film already has been seen at 10 U.S. embassies around the world.

"The United States has been through this and, in some respects, we're still going through it," Jo Ellen Powell, U.S. ambassador to Mauritania, where the film was shown, told The Enquirer.

"We want to help Mauritania become a free country, and what we can share to help them get through it is our own history. It's not a pretty part of our history, but it's a history the Freedom Center presents so powerfully."

An estimated 600,000 Mauritanians have been abducted into slavery, giving it the world's largest proportion of its population -- 20 percent -- being forced to work against its will.

A Mauritanian woman, Fatimata M'Baye, co-author of her country's anti-trafficking law, was one of 10 Trafficking in Persons Heroes honored by Clinton in June in Washington.

Another was Vannak Anan Prum, the Cambodian man abducted and forced to work for four years on a Thai fishing boat until his escape.

A week after the ceremony, M'Baye and Prum were at the Freedom Center for a tour and interview. Each of the 10 people is briefly profiled in the film, which was paid for by the State Department and Google Inc.

Prum and Solomon Northup, a black man born free and lured from his home in Upstate New York and into slavery for 12 years in Louisiana, are the film's main characters. Their similar narratives form its spine.

Producers researched potential historical characters at the Freedom Center to bring to life in "Journey to Freedom." An actor portrays Northup, sold into slavery in 1841 at age 33 after he had accepted a job as a violinist in New York City. Traders drugged and chained Northup. He woke in a slave pen in Washington, D.C., beginning what he would later describe in his memoir, "Twelve Years A Slave," as "dismal phases of a long, protracted dream."

Northup's story of escape and later activism as aide to fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad in Vermont is being made into a 2013 theatrical release co-starring Brad Pitt.

"This guy's story is so similar to modern ones," said Luke Blocher, Freedom Center director of strategic initiatives and "Journey to Freedom's" executive producer, who traveled with the crew to Cambodia.

Prum, living in 2006 in poverty with his pregnant wife, met a job agent who promised him work with as many as 100,000 Cambodians in Thailand. Instead, the agent sold him into forced labor on a fishing boat. Even after swimming to supposed safety, Malaysian police sold him to a palm oil plantation, where he worked for another year before landing in jail after a fight with other workers.

After his return to his family, Prum, like Northup, recorded his experiences. Prum created a set of drawings, and he presented copies as a gift to Clinton in June. She donated them to the Freedom Center.

The documentary advances the Freedom Center's goal to link chattel and contemporary slavery, begun in full in October 2010 when it opened "Invisible: Slavery Today," the first permanent, museum-quality exhibit dedicated to the topic.