This evening I went to see a play called Roadkill which is a powerful and moving exploration of sex-trafficking of young African women into Scotland, in this case Glasgow.  The format was original - we boarded a mini-coach outside the theatre and were joined by the central characters to travel to a tenement flat in a predominantly Muslim part of town.  The action alternated between the hall and one of the rooms and combined film and animation with live action.  It was not an easy watch, nor was it meant to be, as you sat on a sofa doing nothing as a young girl's innocence was stolen from her, and she was drawn into the world of prostitution.

As we left the tenement at the end of the play, it transpired that our bus had been vandalised (not an act!) which seemed to add something to the experience.  Various little knots of Muslim women stood in the street as fifteen white westerners left a flat which, for an hour or so, had effectively become a brothel were brutality occurred.  It was a quiet audience who disembarked from the coach back to the safety of our white, western lives.

This play was sponsored by, among others, the Scottish Refugee Council  to help raise awareness. The Christian organisation CHASTE (Churches Alert to Sex Trafficking in Europe) a few years back recommended films like Lilya 4 Ever and Sex Traffic which portray something not dissimilar, albeit confined to a small screen, and worth watching if you want to consider this subject (they aren't 'nice' believe me).

The play will be showing in the Edinburgh Fringe and then return to Glasgow.  Worth going to see.. but not for the faint-hearted.

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