NALIP member Chelo Alvarez-Stehle takes us on a 15 year journey through Asia and the Americas to uncover the underworld of sexual exploitation and trafficking in the new film ‘Sands of Silence.’ Using her journalism background and her personal story as a base, director Alvarez-Stehle documents the transformation of sex trafficking survivors and details their stories.

“The making of Sands of Silence pushed me into a new journey of introspection. As I set to tell the story of our main subject, Virginia, who struggles to break the cycle of sexual exploitation in her family and her life, I saw my own story - in a very small way - in hers,” says Alvarez-Stehle.

‘Sands of Silence’ has been featured in multiple film festivals including the Malaga Festival, Asserting Women’s Rights, where it won first prize. 'Sands of Silence' also won awards at the Malibu International Film Festival taking two awards one for Best Documentary and the Audience Choice Award. Chelo's documentary film has received much praise and recently accepted the Documentary Feature Audience Award from the Awareness Film Festival. 

"Our film creates awareness on the need to break the silence on sexual violence and this award is dedicated to all the courageous women that broke the silence in our film, and in particular to all those that are breaking the silence in this election season, when we must fight more than ever against all kinds of abusive sexual behavior, even if they seem insignificant."

-Chelo Alvarez-Stehle