Victims of Their Own Demise

Reina Farji

Fundacion Esperanza is a Colombian NGO that foresees the problem of internal human trafficking in Colombia, which is worsening with time. According to the United Nations (UN) and Colombian officials, they highlight the lack of government attention to the domestic aspect of the trade. Their works with trafficking victims has seen a doubling in the number of reports of people trafficked within the country in recent years.
The long-running conflict in Colombia is a major factor exacerbating domestic trafficking. Colombia has the second-highest number of internally displaced people in the world, at almost 4 million, with such people at high risk of being exploited by traffickers. Women in poor rural areas, indigenous people and relatives of members of criminal organizations are also vulnerable to being trafficked within the country, with forced begging a particular problem in cities.

In addition one out of three victims is a child, trafficking people consist of holding them against their will with the use of violence, drugs, coercion or by deception. These victims are sold and transported to other countries specifically to drug lords with the purpose of exploiting them in sexual labor such as prostitution or with the purpose of selling their organs. In other cases it has seen that these people are sold, to be exploited in textile factories or domestic labor. The main problem is that this NGO can’t control when this happens and where it happens. However they have developed strategies and prevention measures to potential victims and furthermore have promoted many laws to be enforced by the government to prevent human trafficking.

Many people live under laws in countries that do not offer extensive protection or punishment of human trafficking. The UN has informed this countries that this “underground” crime will not be tolerated and urges these governments to send a clear message to the public (crime groups and victims). The UN also recognizes the fact that these crime groups are feared by their own government which leads these crime groups to continue with this horrendous acts. In other cases these governments lack the money and resources to prosecute and punish these crime groups.

Although human trafficking is mainly caused by crime groups and drug cartels in many countries like Colombia these people’s lifestyle are terrible enough (either due to poverty or governmental laws) to lead them to look for an alternative lifestyle and they go looking for trouble. They go look for people who “specializes” in transporting them out of the country ( in an “underground” way) to other countries like the United States.

Promising a desired lifestyle and the “American dream”. Consequently these people fall to become deceived victims of human trafficking. In a way they were the victims of their own demise, kind of like a Greek tragedy. They tried to run away of some danger and they fell to one even worse than what they had before.. Fundacion Esperanza understands the conditions of these countries and instead of ignoring why people would fall to be victims of their own demise they provide them with counseling and resources to legally find a way to escape their mother country rather than to become victims of their own dreams and ideals. Fundacion Esperanza works along the UN to inform and prevent human trafficking in Colombia and many other Latin American countries, Asia and Europe.

http://www.fundacionesperanza.org.co/annos.shtml
http://www.fundacionesperanza.org.co/quienessomos.shtml