Street gangs in Colombia used to kidnap and recruit young teenage girls in a sickening trade that sees their virginities auctioned off to drug barons and foreign tourists.
The youngsters were being plucked from the slums – or communal – into a life of organized crime with the promise of stylish clothes, cocaine, and financial help for their families.
But once they enter the gang’s uncompromising influence, they are ruthlessly protected like the highly profitable commodities they have now become – and threatened with death if they refuse to co-operate.
In Medellin, the home town of drug lord Pablo Escobar, whose demand for teenage virgins was notorious, the tradition of offering girls up for orgies with mafia kingpins was depressingly common. ‘They pass from the hands of one capo to other capos and by the end, they have become prostitutes.’
Perversely, the improvements in security that have revolutionalized Medellin from a drug-ridden war zone to a thriving city had opened it up to s$x tourism – and another client base for the gangs.
Clara Ines, the director of Medellin women’s rights NGO Vamos Mujersaid: ‘In the context of the war, and in the context of the “narcotization” of the culture, women have gone from being thought of as s$xual objects to becoming merchandise.
‘Women have become the spoils of war.
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The authorities said they were powerless to intervene because of the grip the cartels hold on the street, to the point of charging their own taxes to resolve neighborly disputes.
They also claimed they were tied by the silence that surrounds the issue as many of the children enter the trade of their own volition.
However, many of those working with the victims say the response of the authorities had been weak.
‘This phenomenon existed and was getting worse every day, but there was no state or police action,’ says Pardo.
Medellin earned its unfortunate reputation as one of the world’s most dangerous cities thanks to Pablo Escobar, the most renowned criminal of all time.
The city was the fortress of the cocaine king and every day several car bombs could explode as Escobar’s cartel went to war with the state.
