Medellín undertakes a fight against sex tourism after discovering an American with two girls in a hotel

The scandal surrounding the discovery of a US citizen along with two girls aged 12 and 13 in a luxury hotel in the El Poblado neighborhood of Medellín has brought with it the first measures this Monday. In a press conference, the mayor of the city, Federico Gutiérrez, announced the signing of two decrees that prohibit the offer of sexual tourism in that sector of Medellín for six months and limit it until one in the morning. Bar hours in the area for a month. According to the local president, Parque Lleras, a place where nightclubs and restaurants are concentrated, frequently visited by foreign tourists, has become a place where crimes linked to human trafficking, drug trafficking and the exploitation of minors are committed. old.

In Colombia, prostitution is neither illegal nor penalized, as indicated by ruling T-629 of 2010 of the Constitutional Court. However, Gutiérrez does it in an extraordinary way and in a specific sector due to the need to combat the mafias that, as he explains, operate in El Poblado. In his speech this Monday, the mayor said: “We cannot prohibit sex work, but we do have to take care of those who also provide these services by understanding that today that entire area is under the control of different criminal structures.”

In his speech, Gutiérrez admitted: “This is a situation that has hit rock bottom. “There is a serious, difficult situation.” He also announced that there will be meetings with the owners of the bars and hotels and with representatives of those businesses to make the new “rules of the game” clear. Those establishments that fail to comply with the rules, the mayor added, will not only be exposed to a possible sealing, but also to a possible forfeiture of ownership. One of the first doubts that Gutiérrez's announcement has raised is whether a ban of this type will actually be effective in containing prostitution, since there is a possibility that the activity will continue to be promoted and offered, with identical problems to those that appear now. El Poblado, in other areas of the city.

The case of the aforementioned American, which occurred last week, has caused an indignant reaction from citizens and has once again put the focus on the problem of sex tourism and the exploitation of children linked to that activity. The man, identified as Timothy Allan Livingston, was discovered thanks to a citizen's complaint while he was with two girls at the Gotham hotel, near Lleras Park. Although he was captured and detained for 12 hours, the authorities released him as he was not caught in flagrante delicto. On Friday, once released, he boarded a flight to Fort Lauderdale (United States). An image of his passport, with his information and a photo of his face, has been spread on social networks after the fact became known.

The hotel in which Livingston was captured is the Gotham, located in the El Poblado neighborhood, a sector of the city that attracts thousands of tourists every night, full of bars, restaurants and hotels that are often very expensive for the purchasing power of a person. average Colombian citizen and in which prostitution is practiced with almost zero control. The hotel page, written entirely in English, offers luxury apartments on three floors and one penthouse. In a couple of lines written in small print at the bottom of the website, the establishment announces: “Gotham rejects exploitation, pornography and sexual tourism involving children and adolescents.”

Once the case was known, the Medellín authorities ordered the sealing of Gotham for 10 days. Mayor Gutiérrez, however, considered that the measure should be more severe and believes that the hotel should go through a property forfeiture process, an idea that he took up again this Monday. “A single fact where it is demonstrated that sexual exploitation of children and adolescents occurs should be sufficient cause to apply forfeiture of ownership to an asset. A closure of just 10 days is ridiculous,” the president wrote. On the other hand, several feminist groups, such as the Medellín Abolitionist Network, have called for a sit-in for next April 9 at six in the afternoon against the exploitation of minors and women.

The Prosecutor's Office announced on Sunday at the end of the afternoon that it has assigned a prosecutor from the Center for Comprehensive Care for Victims of Sexual Abuse (Caivas) to define whether Livingston engaged in “criminal conduct related to induction into sexual practices” with the two girls in Medellin. Depending on the findings of the investigation, the entity considers the possibility of initiating a process of forfeiture of ownership of the hotel where the events allegedly occurred.

Tourism full of shadows in Medellín

Sex tourism is just one manifestation of a larger problem that brings other very complex difficulties. In recent months, there have been several cases of American citizens who have died in suspicious situations in the city. The situation even came to the attention of the authorities of that country, who in January advised their compatriots to avoid the use of dating applications such as Tinder, Grindr or Bumble in Medellín, after several episodes of varying severity originating from meetings arranged through those roads. “Numerous US citizens have been drugged, robbed and even murdered by their Colombian dates,” a text from the embassy said.

As explained by the diplomatic mission, over the last year there has been an increase in reports of incidents related to the use of dating applications, which are frequently used to attract victims and rob them, either by force or through fraud. use of sedatives. However, the capital of Antioquia is also the scene of problems derived from the union between unbridled tourism and drug trafficking, or the transformation of certain areas of the city to adapt them to the needs and desires of visitors, many of them. which are foreigners.

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