Prostitution, especially that of minors, has unleashed a storm of scandals and criticism in Colombia. The situation is not new, but it is on the rise in El Poblado, an upper-class neighborhood in Medellín. In Parque Lleras, a tourist icon of that city, the sexual exploitation of women and girls proliferates. Several factors have played a role: the unemployment that increased with the pandemic, the country’s structural poverty, the lack of public policies, and Venezuelan migration. No official action manages to remedy it.
The writer Carolina Sanín started the scandal. In her social networks, she questioned the mayor of Medellín for the lack of measures to counteract, not only prostitution, but also the misery to which children are subjected in the streets. Daniel Quintero —mediatic and controversial mayor— immediately announced measures: he offered rewards of up to 100 million pesos (approximately 23 thousand dollars) in exchange for information that allows the pimps to be caught. He also decreed a curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for minors who are not in the company of their parents.
Ana Cristina Restrepo, a journalist from Medellín, has been denouncing this situation for years. For Restrepo, the curfew is not effective because the pimps transfer the minors to closed places, without the control of the authorities, and the exploitation continues. The journalist has denounced the lack of public policies of local leaders to solve the problem. “The thing about Parque Lleras, which belongs to the elites, has been going on for many years, even before this great Venezuelan migration. Nor can we say that the increase is due only to the pandemic, ”she explains.
Medellín, located in the Andean center of the country, is the second most populous city in Colombia, with two and a half million inhabitants, and the fourth that receives the most Venezuelan migrants. After Turkey, Colombia is the second country that receives the most international displaced people across its borders, according to UNHCR (United Nations for Refugees).
According to the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), for every 100 poor men in Colombia, there are 117 women in a condition of monetary poverty. According to the Observatory of Women of the Vice Presidency, the proportion of women who live without their own income in Medellín is 30.1%, while that of men is 16.5%. Internal displacement, unemployment and inequality have triggered the phenomenon of prostitution.
In Parque Lleras, in Medellín, criminal organizations are present. The business has spread so much that in the city they usually offer “packages” that include drugs and sex. Luis Fernando Quijano, director of Corpades (Corporation for Peace and Social Development) explains that this sector is controlled by the Convivir groups (illegal mafias). Between 20 and 25 men and women control drug trafficking, the sexual exploitation of minors and women mostly, and “paydays” (loans whose leonine interest people must pay daily). They also have an extortion system called “vaccine”, a name attributed because whoever pays it is supposedly immune to criminal attacks. “Commune 14, El Poblado, is a very complex place in Medellín, which boasts of being among the safest in the city,” says Quijano.
According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), there is a growing trend of victims of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation in South America (from 58 percent in 2016 to 64 percent in 2018) and, in eight countries analyzed, including Colombia, 96% of the victims are women and girls. In Medellín, not all those who practice this trade are controlled by pimps. Some do it of their own free will, but a large part of them are women in vulnerable conditions, extremely marginalized, or victims of the armed conflict who have been exiled. Associated with poverty, there is also the case of Venezuelan migrants.
It is not known how many women work in prostitution. Melissa Bull, director of fucking powerful —an NGO that defends the human rights of sex workers and their children— emphasizes that there is no official registry and, particularly in Medellín, this population has not been registered since 1973. During the pandemic, their group registered 750 women dedicated to this trade In the city center. Toro is in favor of sex work, but warns that there are no guarantees or security to exercise it, nor a health system that covers them. From his organization he seeks to resignify the word “whore”, loaded with stigmas and accusations towards women.
Regarding the phenomenon of prostitution in Parque Lleras, Toro points out that the eyes are on there because, being a high-class neighborhood, it is more noticeable. “We continue to be a completely exclusive society. Why have we never looked at the center of Medellin? There are workers there who earn between $5,000 and $20,000 [entre uno y cinco dólares] for a while. Those in the pink zone have a totally different rate: it is never less than $200,000 [50 dólares aproximadamente]says Bull.
Prostitution worsened by the pandemic
Prostitution skyrocketed two years before the pandemic. “Venezuelan migration brought us a lot of women who start having sex for survival, because they have no other option,” says Melissa Toro, who has a project in which she provides psychosocial care days and health brigades for sex workers and their children. In the tours that she makes in the center —where she focuses on her work—, Toro has perceived the increase in xenophobia between Colombian and Venezuelan women, due to the intense rivalry for clients and the areas that are disputed. She has also realized that many women are in such a degree of vulnerability that they do not even have a cedula (personal identification document). “The first step should be recognizing them. If the State recognizes them, they begin to exist, because they are in a very strong state of violation”, explains Toro, who has been very critical of the mayor’s office.
In Colombia, the exercise of prostitution is not prohibited, but its legislation requires the State to reduce the harmful effects it causes. There are two judicial decisions of the Constitutional Court on the subject that are contradictory. In judgment C-636, of 2009, prostitution “is not desirable, as it is contrary to the dignity of the human person to trade with one’s own being.” The Court warns that the consent of the victim “cannot be considered justification for her exploitation.” However, in ruling T-629, issued a year later, it considers prostitution to be a legal activity, as long as it is carried out voluntarily.
The Colombian penal code punishes the inducement or coercion into prostitution, sexual slavery and human trafficking, but little progress has been made. This has been pointed out by Helena Luna Hernández, criminal judge of Antioquia. “In Colombia there is no active search for human trafficking. We have an overflowing phenomenon of trafficking and sexual exploitation if we compare it with countries in the region such as Peru and Argentina: they beat us five times in annual convictions for trafficking, because here prostitution is so normalized to the point that it is believed to be a fact. And you can’t fight human trafficking without abolishing prostitution because it’s the same market. The market that feeds prostitution is that of trafficking,” explains Hernández, who defends a more abolitionist position against sex work.
The judge believes that regulationist models —such as Germany— and prohibitionist models —such as that of the United States— have failed. In the former, from his point of view, sexual exploitation has increased without better working conditions for women (the majority of those who exercise it in that country are foreigners), while pimps and traffickers continue to get rich. In the second case, that of the United States, “it has a very moralistic component in the sense that they blame both the prostitute and the so-called “client”,” says the judge, who believes that the abolitionist is the only model that has given results, since the woman is considered a victim and the prostituent is punished. In the Colombian case, despite the existence of jurisprudence to prosecute pimps, there is no progress. “I have not had cases of human trafficking or sexual exploitation, and it is a rarity, it seems that it does not exist. Prostitution is not compatible with human dignity”, she concludes.
Claudia Yurley Quintero is a human rights defender, a victim of human trafficking, and an abolitionist. She assures that both the victims of trafficking and the women who have decided to enter sex work autonomously suffer the same traumas, “similar to those of a war veteran”, she affirms. That is why she believes that mental health care is essential, since many of them are drug users and drug addicts.
Claudia Quintero has recommended the mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero, to create specialized shelters for victims of sexual exploitation. She also believes that demand should be discouraged. “How is it done? There are strategies. Educating men, warning foreigners that they cannot come to buy boys and girls”, explains she, who runs an NGO to help victims of sexual exploitation. “It is not a matter of regulation and abolition, but of human rights. We are not even asking that the one who buys be punished, but that they attend to the victims. There is not a single public policy neither in Medellín nor in Colombia for one to get out of prostitution, so how do I want there to be no prostitutes if there is no plan to get out of there? ”, She sentences.
This medium sought the Medellín Women’s Secretariat, but, after having arranged an interview with its delegate, they declined to participate.
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