Editor’s Note: This guest post is written by Gregg Helvey, who wrote, directed and produced Kavi, the winning film of the 2009 Student Academy Award® gold medal in the narrative category. Kavi was filmed entirely on location in India and tells the story of a young boy who wants to play cricket and go to school, but instead he is forced to work in a brick kiln as a modern-day slave. Read Helvey’s full bio below.

Eight years ago I found out that slavery still exists. Although Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation over 147 years ago, there is now far more slavery today than in 1863. A conservative estimate is that 27 million people are enslaved today, which is more people than the entire 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade (Kevin Bales, Disposable People).

Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day. It’s mind boggling that we should even need a day to raise awareness for something that was supposed to have ended in 1863, but modern-day slavery is alive and well. Within organized crime, human trafficking may soon become more profitable than the illegal arms trade, and it is gaining on the drug trade. Whereas you can only shoot a bullet or snort a line of coke once, a 10 year old girl can be sold for sex 20 times over in a single night, or a young boy can be made to haul bricks day after day for his entire life, never knowing what it means to be free. And it is far worse than you can imagine. Today people have become reusable, and when they’re finished, disposable.

I was so rattled by the thought of modern-day slavery that, when I had the opportunity to make a thesis film at USC, I wanted to move audiences just as I was moved; I wanted to make the most of my film by telling a good story, transporting the audience to a different world, and raising awareness about this important issue. Through my film, Kavi, I was able to bring these modern-day slavery statistics and issues to life in the story of a boy in India who just wants to play cricket and go to school but instead is forced to make bricks as a modern-day slave.

As I dug into the research, I learned that the most prevalent yet least known form of modern-day slavery is bonded labor. I read about some brick kilns in India and Pakistan where entire families are forced to make bricks in order to pay off “loans” they were tricked into taking. The slaves are forced to work through intimidation or violence, and if they attempt to escape they are often beaten and then charged for the price of their bandages. If they do escape, then the loan givers will force extended family members to work in their relatives’ stead. Often the victims are both illiterate and innumerate, thus making it difficult to fully understand their own situation. These bogus loans can be passed down through generations resulting in families who have only ever known a life of forced labor. It’s a dire situation. Nevertheless, Indians are helping Indians, and when awareness leads to action, there is hope.

But slavery is not just in India, it’s in our backyard, too. Cities such as Houston, Atlanta, and Los Angeles (to name only a few) rank frighteningly high on a world-wide scale for human trafficking and slavery. On January 4th, 2010, President Obama declared January to be National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month in a presidential proclamation. You can find it in its entirety here. In this proclamation President Obama states that “fighting modern slavery and human trafficking is a shared responsibility. This month, I urge all Americans to educate themselves about all forms of modern slavery and the signs and consequences of human trafficking. Together, we can and must end this most serious, ongoing criminal civil rights violation.”

To that end, my goal in making Kavi was to not only entertain, but to raise awareness and stir people’s hearts to action.

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Gregg Helvey has traveled the world to film in countries such as El Salvador, China, Kenya and Rwanda on projects ranging from National Geographic and BBC1 documentaries to independent fictional films. As a filmmaker, Helvey seeks to combine his passion for social justice with powerful story telling. In addition to earning numerous other awards, his film Kavi (described above) is now vying for an Oscar nomination in the live action short category for the 2010 Academy Awards.

Helvey’s other award-winning work includes the documentary, Overexposed, which examines how pornography affects men. Dr. Drew, Adam Carolla and other cultural pundits comment on the issue as the cameras follow two men trying to navigate the rocky road of love, sex and intimacy in the age of virtual fantasies. More information is available here.

Helvey received his M.F.A in film production from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, and his B.A.s in English and French from the University of Virginia.

All photos included in this post were sent by Helvey. They are from actual brick kilns where Helvey was location scouting for Kavi. You can see more behind-the-scenes photos from Kavi here.