Melody Miller’s child sex-trafficking film focuses on Oakland

by Yohana Gebre

Laney alum and UCLA graduate Melody Miller released a feature documentary March 25 that brings awareness to child sex trafficking in California, especially in Oakland.

“California’s Forgotten Children” retells survivors’ stories of being commercially and sexually exploited, their escape from captures, and their struggle for victims’ rights.

The film claims that Oakland’s International Boulevard is a thriving market for adults to sell children into the sex trade.

After the movie screening, Nancy O’Malley, district attorney of Alameda County and leader of non-profit anti-trafficking organization H.E.A.T. Watch (Human Exploitation And Trafficking Watch), said that 46 percent of all prosecuted human trafficking cases in California since 2011 came from the Alameda District Attorney’s office.

An Oakland native, Miller said she was inspired to make the documentary while in high school, when she first learned that human sex trafficking was happening in India and Nepal. She connected and volunteered with M.I.S.S.S.E.Y. (Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting, and Serving Sexually Exploited Youth), a survivor-led Oakland-based non-profit that educates the public and supports victims of trafficking.

“I started volunteering for [M.I.S.S.S.E.Y], and little did I know that people in my own community and even in my own high school were being commercially sexually exploited,” Miller said. “That changed my whole perspective and understanding around the issue.”

Miller has been volunteering with M.I.S.S.S.E.Y. for nine years now and has made several films that have won the organization some money. She learned how to make movies and film design at Laney College during the night and went to high school and M.I.S.S.S.E.Y. during the day.

Laney Media Professor Marla Leech taught Miller Final Cut Pro in 2008 as well as acting and directing with a camera and media video production. “Marla Leech is my biggest influence and she is like my second mom,” Miller said. Leech is currently on sabbatical leave from Laney.

Miller graduated from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television in 2014, with an emphasis on cinematography and documentary production. At UCLA, she was able to start formulating and creating “California’s Forgotten Children”. While at UCLA, she volunteered for three years at “LA Stop the Traffik,” a student-run non-profit organization at UCLA that brings awareness to sex trafficking. It took five years for Miller to produce the documentary.

“Overall, it was a beautifully thorned road,” she said. Miller says that the process of making the documentary helped shape her into the person she is today.

“[The film] let me realize who the true heroes are, and that the true heroes are survivors just for overcoming what they have experienced: the worst things possible,” Miller said. She admires any human being that can endure being exploited and emerge an advocate for change and peace.

Yohana Gebre is a Tower staff writer.