Mimi Chakarova

 Mimi Chakarova is a documentary photographer. She was born in Bulgaria and  in the age of  thirteen she went  to US. Mimi Chakarova took her BFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. The last ten   years she has been working on a project about sex trafficking of women from Eastern Europe and  in  2008 she  was awarded a People’s Webby Voice about her work on sex trafficking. Nowadays she is teaching in US Berkeley’s School of Journalism,  http://www.mclight.com/gallery/index.html

  Her work is focusing on telling the stories of  people she met through photos.She has spoken in many conferences about sex trafficking. She has travelled in Bulgaria, Moldova and Turkey in order to investigate this phenomenon. She felt  that this project was something personal for her because  ,as she explains, she doesn’t know what might have happened to her if her family did’t go to US. It is worthmentioning what she saw in Bulgaria when she travelled back to the village she was born. All the young women have  immigrated in other parts of Europe.But most  of them were “lost” as their families haven’t heard from them for many years. She explains that this was something odd  because traditionally  people in Eastern Europe have  close ties with their family and their place of birth. And then by searching and investigating she learnt about this widespread  phenomenon of  “sex slavery”.

  Mimi Chakarova tries to be very  careful when she describes and tells about human trafficking. And this deep knowledge of the phenomenon, makes her work even more  reliable as a source of information. On the other hand  her shootigs are simple but  realistic and deeply sensitive.  The  body and the face of these young girls are enough to make you realize what have been through… I think watching  the  videos you will learn more…

http://fora.tv/2009/09/09/CONFLICT_Mimi_Chakarova_on_Sex_Traffickinghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWdex4W2E-M