William Dau warned tourists in Cartagena that their “sexual appetites will be prosecuted”

In recent days there has been an increase in reports of the sexual exploitation of minors in Cartagena, which they would be offering to tourists in the city through different catalogues. The defender of children's rights and former councillor of Bogotá, Nelly Mosquera, was the one who revealed to the congress of the National Federation of Municipalities an investigation she carried out together with 16 other people and in which they demonstrated the existence of this network with audio videos.

Considering that next week is Easter and many more tourists will arrive in the city, the authorities will prepare to face heavily sex tourism in the city. For his part, Mayor William Dau referred to this crime and questioned the harassment to which the leaders of these networks expose minors and, at the same time, warned tourists who come to Cartagena in search of these 'services'.

In addition, the president of the capital of Bolivar responded to the community's demands for effective operations against these networks. “This is a topic that we have identified for a long time. We have been working for many months to combat sexual exploitation, what happens is that we cannot say publicly the operations that have been carried out because the thugs are blown up,” he insisted.

It should be recalled that, since last year, the warnings that have been made about the exploitation of minors in the city of Cartagena have been of concern to the inhabitants and the authorities. The figures are alarming, because, according to the Colombia Institute for Family Welfare, last year, 18,616 processes for the restoration of rights due to sexual violence were opened throughout the country, and of those 660 were cases identified in Cartagema.

In addition, for the crime of commercial sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, a total of 432 cases were opened, 25 of them in the Corralito de Piedra. For his part, Dau highlighted that the authorities have audio and video in their possession showing how these networks operate in the city and that, in the same way, they are working with undercover agents to dismantle these criminal organizations.

“A few days ago we held an event on this topic. We are aware that the authorities have undercover personnel in the operatives. The United States also offered aid, but this is not just a crime in Cartagena, but it transcends borders,” the mayor told the Latin American Summit on Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Persons, which gathered more than 20 countries around this crime.

For his part, the director general of the National Police, General Jorge Luis Vargas, also confirmed that “we have identified several social media groups that are being used to offer sexual services among minors. (...) They are Colombian police officers who work with the U.S. Department of Commerce for these cases, specifically with the ICE agency. Since last week we have been working with this information that we found on social networks”, as quoted by the newspaper El Universal.

The Mayor's Office confirmed that for the Easter season they expect more than 125 thousand visitors, according to Natalia Bohórquez Castilla, executive president of the Tourism Corporation. In addition to having spaces to provide assistance to national and international tourists, the Cartagena authorities announced the strengthening of security with “operations, tourist service centers, security caravans, surveillance on beaches and island areas, with permanent operations in Cholón and Playa Blanca”, as detailed in the event of the administration Paola Pianeta Arango, Secretary of the Interior and Citizen Coexistence (e).

It should be noted that Nelly Mosquera has reported such cases since 2004, assured that together with her work team she has collected evidence of this crime. He indicated that the audios recently revealed are part of an open investigation in December last year and that in a short time he has realized that in Cartagena the sexual exploitation of minors continues to increase.

“There you can see how macabre they charge 200,000 pesos to use or use a minor, and that is what we are putting in front of the authorities today (...) About 20 days ago about 20 people were captured, but the gangs remain the same on the street and we continue with the same scourge, unfortunately Cartagena which is a a city that we all love, because today it is one of the most used by minors during the holidays to exploit them sexually,” Mosquera said in a dialogue with Blu Radio.

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