University professors battle commercial sexual exploitation

Image by Leger Uten Grenser, courtesy of Creative Commons

Written by Maria C. Serrano/FIUSM Staff

maria.serrano@fiusm.com

Advertising and public relations Professor Maria Elena Villar has joined forces with University of Miami researchers to fight against child commercial sexual exploitation in Colombia.

Through the development of an educational role-playing game called “Por Estas Calles,” meaning “on these streets,” the team hopes to raise awareness in regions where crime and extreme poverty forces children to fall victims.

“Criminals prey on these vulnerable children and youth and entice them to get involved in these activities,” Villar said. “But there is a percentage of children that is forced or coerced and don’t know how to get out of it,” she said.

The idea for the game came from University of Miami doctoral student, Jessica Wendorf, a Colombian-American who saw the need to partner with child-serving organizations in Colombia.

“Through their existing relationship with Jessica, [the organizations] reached out to her to help them address the need to raise awareness about the problem,” Villar said.

The team traveled to Bogota, Barranquilla and Cartagena, Colombia where they have partnered with the Colombian National Police. They also met with the Ministry of Tourism, Fundacion Renacer, Fundacion Juan Felipe Gomez Escobar and Colombia Joven to better understand child exploitation in the country.

The game requires players to role-play as characters in scenarios where child sexual exploitation is eminent. Characters include a mother who forces her daughter to provide sexual favors as a source of income.

Another character would be a taxi driver who provides information to tourists on where child prostitutes are found.

The game is intended to be used at workshops held by the police and the Ministry of Tourism in affected areas. It will also provide recommendations for how to report child sexual exploitation to police.

“People in all sectors of Colombian society can identify the problem, prevent it and/or report it to the proper authorities,” Villar said.

According to the organization Children of the Andes, there are 200,000 children being sexually abused every year in Colombia, especially in cities like Quibdo where 49.9 percent of the country’s extreme poverty is found.

Colombian Police Officer Luis Eduardo Barrera, informed Student Media of the importance of the National Police’s involvement in overseeing child protection, especially in the areas of tourism protection and national heritage.

Villar and the researchers received a grant from the Miami Consortium for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, a collaboration between FIU’s Latin American Caribbean Center and UM’s Center for Latin American Studies.

They were awarded $10,000 to develop the project between June 2014 and May 2015. They plan to travel to Colombia again at the beginning of February to visit several regions who are exposed to the problem.

“I haven’t seen a case of a person that I know suffering such an abuse, but it is something you see in the news and people talking [about] in the streets of Colombia,” said University alum and Colombian native Juan Camilo Aristizabal.

“It is something that needs to be addressed and I am more than willing to cooperate in resolving that issue,” Aristizabal said.