CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Colombia sex tourism boom lures MALE foreigners seeking underage girls
MACHO MISOGYNIST FEMICIDE
AFP
June 20, 2024
A woman walks in Lleras park in Medellin -- the city expects a record number of visitors this year - Copyright AFP/File STR
At night, sex workers take up their positions in the Colombian city of Medellin, where a tourism boom has led to a rise in prostitution that is dragging in underage girls.
Once synonymous with lawlessness, the birthplace of Pablo Escobar has become a trendy hotspot for tourists and digital nomads drawn to its mountainous landscapes and vibrant nightlife.
However, a seedy and dangerous underbelly remains, with child prostitutes on offer and a string of tourists drugged and murdered by their matches on dating apps.
“Women drive tourism here in Medellin because men come to Colombia to look for women and to get high,” a sex worker who gave her name only as Milena and said she was in her thirties, told AFP.
Milena said she earns between $150 and $300 per night, the equivalent of the minimum monthly wage in Colombia.
Prostitution is legal in Colombia but several high-profile cases of children being exploited by foreigners have put the local government on guard against sex tourism.
Pedophiles are “taking advantage to come here and have sex” with children, said Jazmin Santa, a member of an independent organization fighting against the sexual exploitation of minors.
Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez declared the city had hit “rock bottom” after an American citizen, 36, was found by police with two girls, aged 12 and 13, in his luxury hotel room in late March.
He was released and returned to the United States, sparking outrage in Colombia.
Gutierrez temporarily suspended prostitution in the touristy heart of the city, El Poblado, and vowed to tackle the gangs involved in pimping out children.
But sex workers can still be seen openly negotiating with tourists in the area.
– Child sexual exploitation –
At least a dozen foreigners have been arrested in Medellin this year for suspected sexual exploitation of children, according to the police.
The age of consent in Colombia is 14, but paying a minor for sex is illegal.
Santa’s organization recorded 714 child victims of sexual exploitation between 2020 and 2022, based on police data.
In April, local media published the alleged chats of a Colombian-American citizen who had negotiated with a sex trafficker to rape a minor of “10 or 11 years” in exchange for $150 and an iPhone XS.
He was arrested at the airport in Miami before taking a flight to Medellin.
The suspect “had entered Colombia 45 times since 2022. These abuses against our children have been occurring with great intensity for years,” said the mayor, Gutierrez.
According to city hall, the number of visitors to Medellin has increased sevenfold in less than a decade, with 1.5 million coming to the city last year, half of them foreigners.
The city expects a record number of visitors this year.
“Most tourists don’t come looking for sex… of course we have some. As long as they do it legally, we in the city can’t do anything,” Medellin’s Tourism Secretary Jose Gonzalez told AFP.
He said the city wants to focus on “health tourism, sports tourism and digital nomads.”
– ‘Scare away’ demand –
In March, Gutierrez proposed regulating short-term rentals on sites like Airbnb after apartments were used to host parties with underage girls. He has since signed an agreement with the platform to exchange information on guests suspected of criminal behavior.
The mayor’s office presents the restriction on prostitution in some areas as a bid to “scare away” demand for sexual services.
But the president of the region’s sex worker union, Valery Ramirez, said the ban was “punitive and unconstitutional.”
As the debate rages, normal tourists have tried to keep to themselves.
Carl Manz, a 33-year-old American visiting Medellin for an amateur football tournament, is not unaware of the prostitution that abounds just a few blocks from where he is staying.
“If that is the culture here, I respect it. But I try to mind my own business,” he said.
AFP
June 20, 2024
A woman walks in Lleras park in Medellin -- the city expects a record number of visitors this year - Copyright AFP/File STR
At night, sex workers take up their positions in the Colombian city of Medellin, where a tourism boom has led to a rise in prostitution that is dragging in underage girls.
Once synonymous with lawlessness, the birthplace of Pablo Escobar has become a trendy hotspot for tourists and digital nomads drawn to its mountainous landscapes and vibrant nightlife.
However, a seedy and dangerous underbelly remains, with child prostitutes on offer and a string of tourists drugged and murdered by their matches on dating apps.
“Women drive tourism here in Medellin because men come to Colombia to look for women and to get high,” a sex worker who gave her name only as Milena and said she was in her thirties, told AFP.
Milena said she earns between $150 and $300 per night, the equivalent of the minimum monthly wage in Colombia.
Prostitution is legal in Colombia but several high-profile cases of children being exploited by foreigners have put the local government on guard against sex tourism.
Pedophiles are “taking advantage to come here and have sex” with children, said Jazmin Santa, a member of an independent organization fighting against the sexual exploitation of minors.
Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez declared the city had hit “rock bottom” after an American citizen, 36, was found by police with two girls, aged 12 and 13, in his luxury hotel room in late March.
He was released and returned to the United States, sparking outrage in Colombia.
Gutierrez temporarily suspended prostitution in the touristy heart of the city, El Poblado, and vowed to tackle the gangs involved in pimping out children.
But sex workers can still be seen openly negotiating with tourists in the area.
– Child sexual exploitation –
At least a dozen foreigners have been arrested in Medellin this year for suspected sexual exploitation of children, according to the police.
The age of consent in Colombia is 14, but paying a minor for sex is illegal.
Santa’s organization recorded 714 child victims of sexual exploitation between 2020 and 2022, based on police data.
In April, local media published the alleged chats of a Colombian-American citizen who had negotiated with a sex trafficker to rape a minor of “10 or 11 years” in exchange for $150 and an iPhone XS.
He was arrested at the airport in Miami before taking a flight to Medellin.
The suspect “had entered Colombia 45 times since 2022. These abuses against our children have been occurring with great intensity for years,” said the mayor, Gutierrez.
According to city hall, the number of visitors to Medellin has increased sevenfold in less than a decade, with 1.5 million coming to the city last year, half of them foreigners.
The city expects a record number of visitors this year.
“Most tourists don’t come looking for sex… of course we have some. As long as they do it legally, we in the city can’t do anything,” Medellin’s Tourism Secretary Jose Gonzalez told AFP.
He said the city wants to focus on “health tourism, sports tourism and digital nomads.”
– ‘Scare away’ demand –
In March, Gutierrez proposed regulating short-term rentals on sites like Airbnb after apartments were used to host parties with underage girls. He has since signed an agreement with the platform to exchange information on guests suspected of criminal behavior.
The mayor’s office presents the restriction on prostitution in some areas as a bid to “scare away” demand for sexual services.
But the president of the region’s sex worker union, Valery Ramirez, said the ban was “punitive and unconstitutional.”
As the debate rages, normal tourists have tried to keep to themselves.
Carl Manz, a 33-year-old American visiting Medellin for an amateur football tournament, is not unaware of the prostitution that abounds just a few blocks from where he is staying.
“If that is the culture here, I respect it. But I try to mind my own business,” he said.
AFP
June 20, 2024
Dissidents of the now disbanded FARC guerrilla group continue fighting for territory and trafficking routes - Copyright AFP/File STR
David SALAZAR
Colombia’s leftist guerrillas are increasingly relying on drones to drop explosives on rivals, sowing terror in rural areas and leaving the military scrambling.
As dissident groups of the now-disbanded FARC guerrilla army continue fighting over territory and trafficking routes, the low-frequency hum of a drone has become a signal for villagers to take cover.
The Colombian military has recently distributed videos of the rebels using unmanned aircraft to attack soldiers and civilians alike — with at least 17 attacks registered in the last six weeks in conflict-torn departments such as Cauca.
Unlike the sophisticated payloads mounted on drones by soldiers in Ukraine, for example, the guerrillas mainly use homemade explosives or fireworks.
So far their rudimentary flying bombs have claimed no lives.
But in the Cauca capital of Popayan, the mayor’s office has banned drone flights after a June 7 attack with explosives on a police station.
Less than a week ago, a girl was injured by an explosive device dropped near a hospital in the town of Suarez, while three soldiers were recently injured in two drone attacks in the town of Argelia.
The armed forces of the South American country battling to extract itself from a six-decade civil war announced Tuesday they were themselves acquiring drones aimed at “containing these terrorist actions.”
– Rudimentary, but effective –
In its military campaign to seize power, the FARC spent millions of dollars on black market weaponry — machine guns, grenades and mines.
Today, the Central General Staff (EMC) and Segunda Marquetalia — two splinter groups that refused to disarm when the FARC signed a peace deal in 2016 — are increasingly relying on commercially available drones that cost less than $1,000 apiece.
“It may be rudimentary technology, but it’s effective,” security expert Luis Armas told AFP.
AFP obtained transcripts from an official source of intercepted phone calls between EMC members discussing plans for drone strikes.
In one, the rebels mull “neighborhoods where the oligarchy lives” in Bogota. Police in the Colombian capital this week announced they had acquired a “Dronebuster 3” to jam drone communications.
A guerrilla commander told AFP that obtaining drones was a priority for the insurgents.
“If the enemy is preparing itself… with drones, then of course we have to keep up,” he said in a voice message from the country’s southwest.
The Cauca department’s security secretary Miller Hurtado told Colombian outlet W Radio there was a race among armed groups to show “that they are better armed, that they have better technology.”
But with the drones lacking precision targeting methods, explosives risk landing on unintended civilian locations such as schools.
Jorge Restrepo, a researcher at the Conflict Analysis Resource Center, said a massive uptake in drone use “would mean a huge jump in military capacity” for guerrilla fighters.
“The armed forces are not prepared” for this new “terrorism” tool, he told AFP.
Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez has acknowledged that the military’s drone-fighting capabilities are “insufficient.”
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