Minors’ Sexploitation Scars City

As the world’s kidnapping capital and site of a four-decade civil war, Colombia is not a tourist mecca. But there’s a notable exception -- Cartagena, a sparkling colonial city on the coast that Colombians call “the jewel of the Caribbean.”

Cartagena’s history as a Spanish bastion against English invasion, its cobblestone streets, quaint plazas, colonial churches, art museums and seafood restaurants attract many visitors. Yet behind the thick, ancient walls lurks a darker attraction: the sexual exploitation of minors by foreigners.

The city has become a magnet for men seeking sex with young girls and sometimes boys, many of them from families displaced from their rural homes by fighting among leftist rebels, government forces and right-wing paramilitary groups.

On the main hotel strip, foreigners openly haggle with underage girls selling their bodies or duck past pink neon lights into what purports to be a discotheque. Inside, bored-looking teenage girls perk up only when a man walks by. He can take his pick, pay as little as $15 and take her to a room across the road.

“Unfortunately, Cartagena has the image of being a place where people can have whatever kind of sexual relations they want,” said Fabian Cardenas, local coordinator for Renacer, a private group that helps victims of sexual exploitation. “There are many foreigners who come here with the sheer objective of having sex. And what the tourist wants, the tourist gets.”

An estimated 1,500 girls and boys work in Cartagena’s sex industry. Over the last three years, Renacer has learned of girls as young as 7 and boys as young as 9 being exploited, Cardenas says.

Cartagena isn’t alone. Many Latin American cities are being frequented by “sex tourists” looking for minors.

Poverty and domestic sexual abuse push many children into the sex industry. “The kids are on the street because of desperation,” said Bruce Harris, former Latin America director of Casa Alianza, a children’s rights group. “The last thing they have to sell is themselves. This is mixed with the fact that the laws for the most part are still very weak, and there’s corruption in the application of the law.”

Bolivar Province’s police chief, Col. Jesus Gomez, who oversees Cartagena, says detectives are investigating criminal sex rings in the city, but have yet to make any arrests. Meanwhile, groups like Renacer and the Roman Catholic Church are trying to help the youngsters.

“Nobody talks about it, but the exploitation of children has gotten very serious,” said Msgr. Hector Fabio Henao, a Catholic leader. “This is something we have to deal with.”

The problem is not confined to tourist districts.

At a brothel in Cartagena’s rundown Bosque neighborhood, several teenagers relax before the Friday night rush.

One 17-year-old -- who declined to give her name, like other sex workers interviewed -- says her family in Cucuta thinks that she is working at a restaurant. She says she plans to return home after she saves enough money. “This is just for a little while, I hope,” she said.

Outreach workers for Renacer -- “to be reborn” in Spanish -- roam Cartagena to offer underage prostitutes a way out.

In a town half an hour from Cartagena, about 30 teenage former sex workers are trying to make a new start at a Renacer rehabilitation center. For many, it may be their last chance to get their lives in order.

“I came here because I need to do this,” said a runaway, 15, who worked as a prostitute and is trying to shake a cocaine addiction. “It’s my best chance.”