The death by cocaine overdose of Yesid Torres, a 15-year old boy from Cartagena, has shocked the inhabitants of Colombia's famous tourist town on the Caribbean coast. Yesid Torres had allegedly been contracted by a 72-year old Italian, Paolo Pravisani, for sexual services, and had been ‘working’ - supposedly as domestic help - in the Italian’s rented apartment for several months. Several other young people were also involved, including Yesid’s best friend’s brother, aged 13. Yesid’s principal duty, according to testimony, was to perform sexual acts with other young people in Pravisani’s presence.
Yesid Torres died on the way to hospital from the cocaine he had consumed in Pravisani’s flat; a camera full of child pornography was found there shortly afterwards, alongside whisky, drugs and Pravisani himself, naked and in a drunken, drugged state. Not one neighbour in the dense residential district of the apartment had denounced the daily comings and goings of these children to the flat over the preceding months.
Colombia Data taken from Global Peace Index
The Italian now awaits trial on charges of child pornography, possession of drugs, sexual assault of a minor under 14 years old, incitement to prostitution, and homicide. His trial is set to be a landmark case in Colombia. It represents the first such trial of an international tourist within the country for sexual crimes involving minors, despite widespread evidence that the problem has been getting worse over recent years. If found guilty, punishment is likely to be harsh, with a minimum of 15 years in prison, and it is hoped that it will have a deterrent effect.
Tourists in search of sex (and drugs) in Cartagena
It does not take long as a tourist in Cartagena to get a sense of what is on offer. Raimondo, my taxi driver from the airport, is quick to offer his services as we drive by the Caribbean Sea on our way to the ramparts of Cartagena's World Heritage walled city. "I can get you what you like, amigo: I know you must want girls. I can get you really beautiful, curvy girls, immediately." For how much, I ask: "very cheap", he says. Young ones? "Whatever you like, I can arrange: white, black, young, old, virgins...here is my number". Boys too? "Of course".
An afternoon on the beach in the district of Bocagrande yields similar findings, with a string of fruit-sellers, masseurs and barmen all quick to offer, without prompting, ready supplies of cocaine and "chicas". University students – nicknamed "pre-pago", pre- paid, as the transaction is completed before they meet the tourist – can be found through the right pimp. These are young people from the provinces, living and studying in Cartagena, who will accompany tourists for a few days in escort style, with time spent on the beach, and in restaurants, preceding sex.
At midnight, in a bar in the centre, dozens of middle-aged Canadian, American and European men (Spanish, Italian, French, German and British), alongside handfuls of Colombian men, leer at, and dance with, scantily-clad girls dressed up to look 16 and older. A strip-tease on the stage sets the scene. It is clear that many of the girls are really younger: 13, 14, with faked identity cards. Deals are openly struck; the men leave with the girls under their arms. A line of taxis awaits outside the bar; several cheap hotels, open 24 hours, are to be found a block away.
Cartagena is full of small hotels, the majority of which condone sex with minors by the hour (a handful pledge their objection in signs at the reception). The growing number of apartment-hotels (‘para-hotelería’) is also part of the problem: rented by the week, with scant vigilance and a degree of autonomy for the guest, they are a prime location for illicit sex with minors. One large apartment block in ‘El Laguito’ district is a good example: a huge, labryinthine building, with several hundred rooms and apartments, and low levels of vigilance at the door.
The big five-star hotels – some of the finest in the world – are not exempt either: despite their open commitment to ensuring compliance with the law in this respect, hoteliers privately confess that their porters and nightwatchmen are susceptible to bribes to let their guests, and their young companions, surreptitiously through. Video footage exists of a minor being let through the back door of one famous hotel some months ago, a bribe being passed to willing staff.
A wider context of poverty and cultural norms
The view from Cartagena's hilltop church, 'La Popa', reveals the harsh reality of life for the majority of Cartagena's over one million inhabitants. Unbeknown to tourists in the historic old town, Cartagena's slums are among the largest, and poorest, in Colombia: huge swathes of squatter settlements, with no electricity or running water, where unemployment and malnutrition rates are extremely high. Over 500,000 people in Cartagena live in conditions of extreme poverty, according to national and local government statistics.
Many have been displaced from the rural areas surrounding Cartagena as a result of Colombia's ongoing civil conflict, and associated FARC- and paramilitary-induced violence. One of the slums, ‘Nelson Mandela’, is almost entirely made up of internally displaced people (IDPs) from the conflict. Many children here have bloated stomachs and yellowing hair, tell-tale signs of malnutrition. And these communities are no-go areas after dark: many home to paramilitary forces and high levels of drug-related crime.
Some mothers in these communities say their children are involved in the sex trade because of poverty, and that extra money brought home by their child is a significant, even life-saving addition to the household budget. In some cases, mothers encourage their children to become involved in the sex trade; in others, tacit acceptance is the norm. Many others, though, are adamant that their children will not become involved. One 30-year old sex worker I spoke to, María, was emphatic: “I would never wish this trade on my children, or anybody else for that matter. It is horribly cruel and degrading”.
Many observers of the problem situate the involvement of minors in sex work with tourists in a wider cultural context, in which underage sex is a significant part of life in impoverished areas of the city.
Veronique Henry is Country Representative of the work of Terre des Hommes in Colombia, a Swiss NGO which is the only organisation in the country to assume the responsibility of legal representation of child victims, including those involved in the Pravisani case. She describes how a child’s first experience of sexual abuse sometimes occurs in the family: “sexual abuse of a girl at the hands of a father, step-father or uncle”. In a strong ‘macho’ culture, it is not unheard of for an uncle to decide to take the virginity of his 12-year old niece, “on the basis that she is now deemed of an age that she should no longer be a virgin”.
Father John Mahony, a British priest who has worked in Cartagena for over 25 years, concurs: “Poverty is an important part of the problem, but not the only one: strongly established cultural acceptance is also a big part of it. In many poor areas in which I have worked, children are often enticed into sexual exchanges with community figures, such as shop owners, in return for sweets, or the chance to watch television”.
Claudia Ayola, child psychologist and special adviser to Cartagena’s Mayoress Judith Pinedo on the issue, also stresses the wider context: “The involvement of minors with tourists is only the tip of the iceberg here. There are a large number of Colombian tourists who come here for this purpose, and there is a lot of demand from within the city’s inhabitants too”.
Ayola adds: “We are focusing our efforts on structural and societal change to reduce the vulnerability of children in this society. Tourists here are taking advantage of a situation which is already highly prevalent and complex. Our efforts must address the root of the problem”. Mayoress Judith Pinedo’s administration is widely held to have understood the subject in depth, and is respected for attempting to take strong measures to prevent it.
Positive efforts to combat the problem
Fundación Renacer, a locally-based NGO with over twenty years’ experience working with child victims of sexual exploitation, has spearheaded efforts both to provide rehabilitative support for victims and to awaken Cartagena’s society to the breadth and extent of the problem. Fábian Cárdenas, their project co-ordinator, organises visits with his team to brothels and other places in the city where minors work: they disseminate advice, condoms, and contact details for young people seeking help. They also run a boarding house for young people who need psychological support and a surrogate family environment away from the work in which they are involved.
Civil society organisations in Colombia have proposed more protective laws for victims, and Colombia’s 2006 reform of the law on childhood and adolescence has strengthened legal sentences. But many national and foreign suspects have been let off through lack of evidence, and some local investigators have been bought off during legal processes. The national government is, though, making substantial efforts and considering new legislation, whilst at the same time supporting a team of 43 trained investigators to work on the problem nationwide.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration and several international NGOs are also working attentively to combat the involvement of minors in sexual tourism, supported by the British and other international embassies in Colombia. All concur that high-profile arrests of international tourists involved in sex with minors would be of enormous benefit to the attempt to change attitudes in the country, and internationally. John Dew, British Ambassador to Colombia, is adamant that "the international community needs to help local authorities and civil society work together against this vile exploitation of poor and vulnerable young people by both tourists and locals". The trial of Paolo Pravisani, set for April 2009, will be followed with greater interest.
But wider attitudes will have to change too, argues Claudia Ayola, and an increase in the age of sexual consent in Colombia – currently 14 – will also be important in this respect. “At the moment, if sexual interaction occurs with a minor under 14, then this is automatically held to be a crime, whether the child is said to have consented or not. In cases of young people over the age of 14, it is very difficult to prove that there has been coercion in the sexual interaction, even when – from a psychological, circumstantial point of view – it is clear that there has been”.
The Latin American Context
Cartagena is one vivid example of a continent-wide problem: where tourists in any significant numbers converge, in Central or South America, and especially in communities where poverty is the norm, sex tourism has flourished. Cuba, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, Brazil and Argentina all have similar stories to tell. ECPAT International (‘End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes’: www.ecpat.net) has partners in each country in the region, and has developed country strategies with each country’s key governmental and non-governmental agencies. Stronger legislation and meaningful preventative measures are consistently called for.
In an increasingly unequal world, however, and in a region where – despite economic growth – structural violence and stark inequalities continue to affect the lives of many millions of young people, it is hard to foresee change overnight. “It is immense inequalities of wealth that make children into sexual merchandise, huge differences in income between Latin America and more developed nations that make it easy for affluent sexual predators to hunt for victims here”, argues Timothy Ross, a British nurse, based in Bogotá, who has worked on the subject in the region for over thirty years.
Yesid Torres
The tragic death of Yesid Torres – photographs of whom, proudly standing in front of the new motorbike Paolo Pravisani had recently bought him, have filled the local press of late – has brought the underworld of Cartagena’s (and by extension Colombia and the region’s) burgeoning tourist industry powerfully to light. Political, social and legal action is urgently required if the country is to avoid acquiring a very negative reputation for sex tourism in the future.
