Nefarious: Merchant of Souls
"Nefarious" was written, directed, produced and narrated by Benjamin Nolot, founder and president of Exodus Cry, the film's distributor. Nolot, who travelled to 19 countries to collect the film's content, said that the purpose of the film is "to draw people's attention to the issue, but also to inspire them in terms of what they can be doing … to take a stand against this injustice." The film was officially released on July 27, 2011, with individual grassroots screenings also taking place. Laila Mickelwait, Exodus Cry's director of awareness and prevention, screened the film in several countries in an attempt to persuade governments to make laws similar to Sweden's "Sex Purchase Act", which criminalizes the purchasing rather than the selling of sex. The film was released on home video on May 1, 2012.
Nefarious: Merchant of Souls
The film was officially released on July 27, 2011, with individual grassroots screenings also taking place. Nolot appeared at a screening in Appleton, Wisconsin, and afterwards led a question and answer session with a local police officer. During this time, Nolot promoted the Red Light Campaign, wherein drivers waiting at red lights pray for sex trafficking to end. Texas State representative Todd Ames Hunter attended a screening at the Summit Church in Corpus Christi, saying that human trafficking "is a critical issue to the state of Texas that needs education and attention." The Justice Alliance, a Christian nonprofit organization that raises awareness about human trafficking, hosted a screening in the auditorium of El Dorado Middle School in Kansas. Florida Abolitionist, a non-governmental organization that also opposes human trafficking, sponsored a screening at the Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. Most of the attendees were Christians. The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) hosted two screenings of the film in 2012, one of which took place before the Parliament of Tasmania. The Government of Tasmania was considering reforms to the Tasmanian sex industry at the time and the ACL was disappointed because the only politicians who showed up to the screening were four members of the Liberal Party. The ACL planned screenings in the rest of the states of Australia as well, hoping to convince legislators that the criminalization of the purchase of sex is the only effective way of combatting sexual slavery. Another screening was held at United Nations headquarters in New York City in March 2012 during that year's session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.