Born into Brothels, movie review

Born into Brothels is a compelling documentary that follows a group of Indian children who were born in the Red Light District in Calcutta. Zana Auntie, a British photographer, moves into a brothel to learn about the lives of the women working/living there but quickly realizes numerous children also live in the brothel. Zana Auntie gives each child (about a dozen total) a camera and film and sends them off to take photographs. The children become enthralled with the fun and power in taking photos, and Zana creates a photography class to channel their energy. The class becomes more sophisticated as she teaches about technique, composition, and becoming and artist. The photos are surprisingly insightful and come with deft commentary by the kids.

While the children love using the camera and selecting the best photos of each roll, Zana becomes engrossed in her pupils and searches for boarding schools willing to enroll them. She realizes that education is the only opportunity for them to escape the brothel. Many of the young girls are on the verge of being put “in the line” of prostitutes by their mothers.
If you plan to watch the movie, you may want to wait on reading the rest of this.

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Watching Zana’s determination in advocating for the children reminds me of the work we did creating Sabu International School. Substitute civil war refugees for prostitution and turn the families African instead of Indian and you have the garden of poverty from which Sabu grew. Zana’s struggles to navigate the 3rd world bureaucracy brought me back to the corrupt government officials and the mapless mazes of paper work required to register the school, purchase land, and apply for NGO status.

The children’s faces are the same as well. They convey honest, hard working children whose natural light still shines strongly from behind their eyes. This despite having seen parents and friends murdered; despite having to flee their home on foot; and despite the meager portions of food (often only a handful of white rice after school) on which they somehow survived. These kids were no less intelligent than any other children in the world. They were mature and strong and–with education–capable of anything.

In the end, one must accept one’s limits. Just as Zana found schooling for all of the children–a tremendous feat–only to have parents remove them, we also experienced heartbreaking disappointments. After months of teaching the kids to resolve disputes without fighting and empowering the teachers to discipline students with out resorting to corporeal punishment, I came to school one day to find that the “principal” of the school had beaten two kids the afternoon before. All the teachers had pledged not to beat children, and we had multiple discussions about the long-term goal of equipping Sierra Leone’s future leaders to handle disputes non-violently*. On many occasions, parents discontinued their daughter’s education because they deemed it not worthwhile.

One of the lessons learned from Sabu is that one can clear a path towards opportunity, but individuals choose to leave that path. It is even more heart breaking when parents choices limit their children’s’ options–live removing them from the once-in-a-lifetime opportunities Zana Auntie arranged for the kids to study in boarding schools.

No matter what you think is best, or what may actually be best, you are not the parent. One must let the family make a decision. I admire how Zana did the best she could for her photography kids but knew her the limits of her role. I guess in America, those children would be taken from the parents, put into foster care, and remained in school. While I can’t imagine a good reason why those children should return to the brothel, it’s tricky coming into another culture and bringing Western ideas of right and wrong.

At Sabu, the goal was to at least give the students and families a choice. With regard to corporeal punishment, I was always careful not to tell parents how to discipline their kids at home. But at school, we showed everyone–teachers, students and parents–that it is not necessary to hit kids to keep order. While many of Zana’s students were removed from school, I’d bet that when they have children, they will value education more than their parents did.

The raw, freehand camera work of Born into Brothels conveys the immediacy of the story. It brings the viewers into the homes so that we gain a sense of Zana’s experiences and connection with the kids. It is such a treasure for her to have this documentation of her experiences. I have only praise for her extraordinary ability to connect with the students and to fundraise and advocate for them internationally. After the heartache that overwhelms much of my experiences with Guinea, Born into Brothels gives me a fresh perspective on the movie’s subject matter and on my own life.

*After asking around about the principal, we learned that he had a long-term drinking problem and had regressed to beating children in school before. I had a couple of frank discussions with him during which he was sincerely sorry and felt ashamed. One must remember that the teachers and students were refugees. All had PTSD and had suffered deep trauma from the atrocities they had survived in Sierra Leone. After all, Sabu was an opportunity to help the students, parents, and teachers.