"Sisters" – a film exposing the experiences of Serbian women trafficked into the sex trade, produced with technical assistance from IOM, premiered in Belgrade this week and will be screened on Serbian national television in May.

The film tells the story of two young women who are forced into the sex trade after being tricked into believing that they have been offered jobs in Italy.

The story is factually based and reflects the nature of human trafficking in Serbia, where 90 per cent of trafficking victims are young women, who are sold for sexual exploitation.

Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic and other senior government figures, as well as diplomats and leading film industry figures attended the premiere.

The Prime Minister said that Serbia has formed special anti-crime units which in 2009 succeeded in arresting 200 people involved in human trafficking.

"Serbia is committed to fighting human trafficking and is reviewing its anti-human trafficking regulations with the assistance of IOM, UNHCR and UNODC," he said.

"The film does not have explicit scenes of sex and violence, but shows the consequences. It is emotional, but we intentionally did not make it identical to the true stories, as we wanted to protect the victims," said Bojana Malijevic, who produced the film for the Monte Royal Production Company.

The production was funded by IOM, the European Union and the Serbian Ministry for Culture.

For more information, please contact:

Gregoire Goodstein
IOM  Belgrade
Tel: +381 11 382 17 03
E-mail: ggoodstein@iom.int