HomeNewsAnalysisColombia's Bogotá-Medellín Highway Rife With Child Sex Exploitation
ANALYSIS

Colombia's Bogotá-Medellín Highway Rife With Child Sex Exploitation

COLOMBIA / 11 SEP 2019 BY LAURA MARCELA ZUÑIGA EN

The highway between Bogotá and Medellín is one of Colombia's worst sites for child sex trafficking and exploitation, as criminal groups abuse underage, underprivileged girls who are now being encouraged to fight back by going to the authorities.

Girls between 12 and 15 years old, usually from very poor families, have been forced to offer sexual services to drivers passing through the service station known as Caracolí, located between the municipalities of Honda and La Dorada, as was first reported by El País. This service station is just a few meters away from a police station, yet it's one of the focal points of a network of pimps and motel operators working along this crucial road.

A number of organizations assisting survivors to file reports with authorities told InSight Crime that at least 39 underage girls were sexually exploited around the Caracolí service station.

Through long investigations, involving wiretaps and intercepting phone calls, authorities have managed to identify some of the sex traffickers and the modus operandi of these networks.

SEE ALSO: Colombia News and Profiles

The usual method is that potential clients are approached and offered a catalog bearing the photos of the children, one investigator who asked to remain anonymous told InSight Crime.

Once a price has been agreed to, “they call the chosen girl and take her to the indicated site, whether it is a motel or private residence,” the source added. This type of sexual exploitation operation, showing a catalog instead of having the girls present, is also known to exist in Medellín.

However, other girls reported having been coerced by their families. One 14-year-old girl identified as Patricia told El País that her aunt first took her to Caracolí and offered her directly to truck drivers for 20,000 Colombian pesos (around $6).

In March 2019, prosecutors dismantled one sex trafficking ring which forcibly recruited girls around the town of Guaduas, 60 kilometers away from La Dorada and the highway, according to judicial sources consulted by InSight Crime.

InSight Crime Analysis

The girls are now fighting back. An increasing number of them are filing complaints with authorities with the assistance of organizations such as Todas con las Mujeres.

Colombia is known as a destination for child sex trafficking. More than 100 cases of child sexual exploitation were filed with authorities every month between January 2013 and July 2018. And the figure is rising, with the number of reported cases having tripled in the last five years.

Yet the conviction rate has been abysmal. Of 85,000 investigations into claims of child sex abuse between 2005 and 2018, only 6,116 ended in a conviction.

To date, no arrests have been made related to complaints filed by the survivors of the crime networks operating on the Bogotá-Medellín highway.

Despite wider investigations into sex trafficking in Colombia, this lack of a response for the "girls of Caracolí," as investigators refer to them, has shown the lack of protection being offered to these girls and to other potential targets, leaving them as easy prey for criminal groups.

Most of these cases have been filed in Bogotá and Medellín, considered to be major centers for sex tourism and child exploitation.

SEE ALSO: Coverage of Human Trafficking

The case of the girls of Caracolí has also shown how child sex trafficking rings have extended their reach to other highways across the country, where they allegedly act with impunity due to a lack of state controls in service stations and other facilities.

Due to fears about obstruction of justice related to the case, their complaints are now being overseen in Bogotá by Mario Gómez Jiménez, Colombia's special prosecutor for crimes against children and adolescents, who is in charge of the investigation.

Access to justice has historically been limited for the victims of child sex trafficking, who often do not file complaints. Authorities say that this has meant they do not have a full understanding of how many children have been abused in the country.

Gómez Jiménez told InSight Crime in an interview that many girls also do not want to participate in witness protection programs as they fear they could be taken far away from their families and homes.

The girls also refrain from speaking out for fear criminal gangs will target their families in retaliation, he explained.

This vulnerability has also seen many girls seek protection from different criminal groups or abusers, who may pledge more protection or only a certain type of client.

Members of Todas con las Mujeres, who have followed the girls of Caracolí for the last year to assist and document their lives, told InSight Crime that many of these children are no longer at Caracolí, but that they are sexually exploited at other points along the Bogotá-Medellín highway.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COCA / 28 APR 2023

A collapse in coca prices means Colombian farmers are struggling to sell their coca crops. The cocaine trade won't be…

ARMS TRAFFICKING / 24 APR 2023

InSight Crime spoke to journalist Ioan Grillo to better understand gun trafficking into Latin America from the United States.

COLOMBIA / 19 DEC 2022

Entrenched criminal groups on the Colombia border keep resisting Venezuelan Army efforts to root them out.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…