A few months ago, Tyler Schwab (Afton, Wyoming, 33 years old) was heading to New York to attend the trial against Angad Amit Beharry. A pedophile, an American like him, who paid a Venezuelan woman for pornographic videos recorded in Bello, Antioquia, in which she sexually abused her baby. Libertas International (LI), the NGO Schwab created in 2013, was supporting the little survivor and her new caregiver.
That is just one of several cases of sexual exploitation that Schwab tracks in Colombia. She gave up her medical studies to dedicate her life to the fight against the exploitation and sexual trafficking of girls in Latin America. In recent years, he has focused LI's efforts on the survivors of Medellín, a city where several of his “countrymen,” as he calls them, have sexually exploited minors behind the false curtain of tourism. . This organization has supported more than 80 girls in the last two years.
In addition to providing support to victims, LI pressures perpetrators, especially those from the United States, to face justice. In a hotel in western Bogotá, Schwab speaks with EL PAÍS about the scourge of sexual exploitation of minors in Colombia and the fight that lies ahead.
Ask. Why did you become interested in the sexual exploitation of minors in Latin America?
Answer. At 19 years old I lived in the Dominican Republic as a missionary. There I saw many girls on the streets with foreigners. At first I didn't even understand what was happening, but those images stayed in my head. I decided to return, and upon returning I understood reality. I went to a brothel, where I found a pimp and a girl of about 14 years old. I paid to talk to her. She told me that her family was hungry, and that she had accepted an offer of a job as a waitress. After her, he said, they forced her to sleep with men, because the pimp threatened to take advantage of her younger sister if she didn't. 80% of the profits went to that man.
I was very shocked and wanted to talk to her the next day, but they had moved her. I never found out what happened to her. I spent two weeks talking to victims in the Dominican Republic. Some were immigrants, there were trans children, others from Venezuela, some had their documents taken away. That made me know what was happening, and I decided to change my life. I wanted to try to support them.
Newsletter
The analysis of current events and the best stories from Colombia, every week in your mailbox
RECEIVE THE
Q. After those meetings, what did you do?
R. I left my medical studies and took training on human trafficking. From there I started working on prevention, then intervention and aftercare. Libertas International was formally born in 2013. I started working in the Dominican Republic and they began to call me with cases from Guatemala and Peru.
Then an HSI agent contacted me [la oficina de investigaciones del Departamento de Seguridad de EE UU, encargada de investigar delitos transnacionales]. She told me: “we have a case and I want to introduce you to a girl.” They told me that they had found her in an Airbnb with a guy who was already in prison. He, Víctor Galarza, raped girls, trafficked them and shared their images online. He was convicted of it in June 2022. That was the first survivor I supported in Medellín. When I got there everything changed. That case made me very angry and I decided that I wanted to dedicate 100% of my time to helping girls in Colombia who have been victims of Americans.
Q. What characterizes sexual exploitation in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Colombia?
R. Each country has particularities. There is “sexual tourism” everywhere—although I don't like that term because they are not tourists, they are criminals, pedophiles who travel. In the Dominican Republic I found many families who were selling their children; That also happens here in Colombia. In Guatemala, there were gangs like MS-13 and 18 that were selling girls and women.
In Colombia some girls have been victimized by the FARC and the ELN, but in Medellín we especially find many gringos who take advantage of girls to rape them. They leave them with sexual diseases, with horrible traumas, with videos posted online. Many return to the United States as if nothing had happened. That fills me with anger. The gringos who use Colombian girls, those who are victimized by my countrymen, make me very angry.
Q. Your organization has 32 investigations open to Americans for cases of sexual exploitation in Medellín. Why do you think they are coming to the city?
R. It's a very good question. I have thought a lot about that, including last year, when the Colombian Police gave me an award and in my speech I could only ask for forgiveness for my countrymen. Colombia has suffered from the addictions that gringos have: drugs and sex, even sex with minors. I wonder what's on their mind, and I really don't know. They are pedophiles. I think we cannot get to the point of knowing how a person can travel to another country and think that, because there are vulnerable people, he has the right to do whatever he wants with them.
Q. How do you see the handling of the authorities and Colombian society in this situation?
R. We have had difficulties with some prosecutors. For example, recently a prosecutor was asking for more victims in a case: we needed five, because four were not enough to open an investigation. That seemed very strong to me. It was like hearing that in Colombia the first four rapes are free, they are on the house, and the fifth is not. There is a problem there. One victim is always more than enough.
Q. Sometimes there is talk of child prostitution, it is believed that minors are not exploited because they agree to have relationships. Do you think that in Colombia sometimes the victims are not recognized, that they are even treated as victimizers?
R. That happens a lot, even with themselves, who often don't recognize it. But you have to go further, you have to open your heart. If a child is having sex, there is something behind it. That is why we have to change the way we talk about the subject.
Q. The Prosecutor's Office has records of nearly 8,000 minors who have been victims of crimes related to sexual exploitation in the last five years…
R. I think it is a very low number. We receive a new case every 15 days; In the last two years we have served more than 80 girls in Medellín alone. We have also handled cases in Cartagena, Cali, Bogotá, La Guajira or Cúcuta. In addition, there are cases of Colombians outside the country. For example, two years ago in the Dominican Republic there was a giant operation where 83 Colombian women were rescued, and last year there was another large action in Greece. We know of many girls who are exploited by the Aragua Train. The numbers are low given this reality.
Q. In most of the cases that Libertas knows of, United States citizens are involved. What happen?
R. First there is sex addiction. Pornography has never been more accessible; In the US it is consumed a lot. In addition, there are groups and networks to talk about how to get girls. It is a matter of time before predators travel to other countries to commit crimes. Many live a double life: there they are police officers, teachers and professionals; Here they are pedophiles and abusers.
I think racism is also a factor. Many think that a Colombian girl is worth less than an American one. That happened in the case of a teacher from Texas, who had a girl in her house and, according to her, he had never touched her. Here she used drugs and raped girls, whom she made feel as if they were going to die.
Q. You often attend the trials against these subjects. What do you observe in their behavior?
R. Seeing the fear on their faces impacts me a lot. They are cowards who look for little girls to exploit, but when those girls have the support of women, journalists, police or prosecutors, they are no longer as strong as they think when they are taking advantage of those girls.
Q. One of your goals is to push for justice for survivors, how do you do it?
R. We have found very good police officers in Colombia and the United States, who from time to time need money to do the job. For example, if we are in Medellín and the police officers we work with are in Bogotá, we collaborate with the trips so that they can interview the girls and make an arrest. When an interpreter is needed, we pay for it, so that the capture is done well.
Mervin, our director of justice, knocks on the prosecutors' door here. In the US we work with the Department of Justice to ensure that girls are heard in court. If they can't go, at least write a letter for the judges to read. We also fight for restitution, we want the exploiters to pay for the girls' therapy and some expenses they may have. For example, we have a case in which a man tattooed his name on the back of a survivor. We want him to pay to remove that tattoo. That is very important for victims.
Q. How do you ensure that survivors break the chains of exploitation?
R. We focus on building and supporting their life projects, what they want and what it takes to achieve it. 90% of the girls we support do not return to that life. Those who do break our hearts, but there is always the offer that they can come back whenever they want.
Q. What changes should Colombia implement to combat the exploitation of minors?
R. We must hit the bad guys with very strong sentences, take all their money and show their faces everywhere. They have to know that the Police and the Prosecutor's Office are going to put them in prison with only one victim and that they are going to be named pedophiles for life. That they are going to have zero in their bank accounts and that they will live in a Colombian prison for 30 years. In the preventive part, we must invest in education. In the United States we also have to ask ourselves what we are doing and what we can do to prevent this from continuing to happen.
Q. What motivates you to continue in that fight?
R. Sometimes it's hard. When we remove one head, two more come out. I am motivated by survivors. Their messages of love and affection show that our work is useful for something.
Q. What is the next step for Libertas International?
R. Continue expanding. I want to support the people who have been victims of Americans in Cartagena, Cali, Bogotá, anywhere. Also reach countries like Haiti and Mexico, but always without neglecting what we have achieved in Medellín.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS newsletter about Colombia and here to the channel on WhatsAppand receive all the information keys on current events in the country.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Tyler #Schwab #activist #sexual #exploitation #disguised #tourism #gringos #Colombian #girls #angry