| She Has a Name | |
|---|---|
 Promotional Facebook/Twitter profile picture for the 2012 cross-Canada tour | |
| Written by | Andrew Kooman |
| Chorus | Four dead child prostitutes |
| Characters | Jason Number 18 Ali Marta Mama Pimp |
| Date premiered | February 23, 2011 |
| Place premiered | EPCOR Centre for the Performing Arts in Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | Child sex tourism Forced prostitution Human trafficking Prostitution of children Sexual slavery |
| Genre | Legal thriller Political drama Tragedy |
| Setting | Bangkok, Thailand |
| Official site | |
She Has a Name is a play about human trafficking written by Andrew Kooman in 2009 as a single act and expanded to full length in 2010. It is about the trafficking of children into sexual slavery and was inspired by the deaths of 54 people in the Ranong human-trafficking incident. Kooman had previously published literature, but this was his first full-length play. The stage premiere of She Has a Name was directed by Stephen Waldschmidt in Calgary, Alberta in February 2011. From May to October 2012, She Has a Name toured across Canada. In conjunction with the tour, A Better World raised money to help women and children who had been trafficked in Thailand as part of the country's prostitution industry. The first performances of She Has a Name in the United States took place in Folsom, California in 2014 under the direction of Emma Eldridge, who was a 23-year-old college student at the time.
The script calls for five actors to portray ten characters. The two main characters are Jason, a young Canadian lawyer; and Number 18, a young female prostitute who claims to be fifteen years old and has been a prostitute for six years. The drama centers on Jason's infiltration of a brothel ring that is trafficking girls into Bangkok. Jason comes to believe that Number 18 could be a key witness to a human trafficking incident and tries to gain her trust and persuade her to testify against the ring. The victimized child in the play is known only by the number 18 to reflect how traffickers often dehumanize their victims by giving them a new name or simply a number, which in some cases is branded onto the victim's body. Waldschmidt said he hoped that She Has a Name will educate Canadians about human trafficking and motivate them to act on what they learn, thereby turning them into anti-sexual slavery activists.
She Has a Name received strong endorsement from Canadian activists, including MP Joy Smith, Ratanak International's Brian McConaghy, and IJM Canada's Jamie McIntosh. The play's premiere and initial run were critically acclaimed. In the 2012 tour across Canada, She Has a Name was performed in several fringe theatre festivals, at which critics representing the Montreal Gazette, the Winnipeg Free Press, and CFEQ-FM said it stood out for its quality and moral content.