It was completely unbelievable, terrible tragedy. But I can easily imagine the story was based on the truth. I want to hardly believe it.

I saw a movie, Lilja 4-ever, as a part of the activity of the Amnesty International. The movie deals with the problem over the prostitution.

A Russian girl, 16-year-old, was broken up the relationship as parents by her mother, so that she doesn窶冲 have any money to make a living. At last, she decided to sell her body; work as a prostitute.

In the latter part of the movie, she went to Sweden, and she supposed to live there with hers boyfriend, but in fact, she was deceived, she had to work as a prostitute again, it was entirely unexpected incident for her. In this case, an agent controlled her life. He guaranteed at the lowest expense such as foods and an apartment room for her. But I guess, she didn窶冲 get any money from him. She was like in jail; shut in a room all the time except for going out for the work.

The same thing must happen in Japan. More and more people came to Japan to work as a prostitute, many of them are from South East Asia. Some are forced, some are willingly. But it cannot be justified by any reason. It窶冱 exploitation, it窶冱 slavery.

What can I say, what can I do, what should I do窶ｦ These questions were always in my mind.

I have been thinking about the solution. I still don窶冲 have any good idea, well, but suppose the inequality of gender caused the prostitution, I mean the female gender is controlled by the male gender, because of the imbalance of the power, to solve this problem, it should rely on the education and social security. By maintaining the minimum standards of the life, providing the chances to receive equal, good education, it will make people and the society more peaceful.

Anyway, it was good movie, but not fun. If I were asked whether I recommend, I would be at a loss how to answer. It was serious movie. We couldn窶冲 say anything for a while after watching this movie. But the reality is more serious.

http://www.viff.org/viff02/filmguide/filmnote.php?FCode=LILJA