In poverty-stricken countries all over the world, wicked opportunists and corrupt sadists abuse, exploit, and make immoral monetary gain off of the most vulnerable individuals in society – the children, the women, the gullible, the desperate – corruption knows no bounds and affects all of these poor souls indiscriminately.
Even the innocent babies, toddlers, and the unborn fall victim to the horrors that mankind is capable of perpetrating in these backwards, corrupt, and unforgivingly dysfunctional third world countries. Some of these barbaric practices stem from the chaos of a society that has been ravaged by war and endless conflict, while some are just so deep down the never-ending rabbit hole of greed and corruption that they are inherently doomed to an eternally poor, endlessly misfortunate tragedy of a life lived and ended in the slums and gutters of the lowest of the low.
In Southeast Asian societies such as the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and the countries of Central and Latin America, human trafficking rates have exponentially boomed along with the staple of crimes that we associate with these kinds of societies, such as prostitution, drug trade, murder, theft, and organized crime syndicates.
In 2013, a consensus of the country estimated that roughly seventy-thousand individual members of Columbian society fall victim to the human trafficking crisis every year, and there is no doubt that this figure has sharply risen in previous years, considering the alarming rate at which impoverished countries continue to get poorer while the uncaring and money-hungry members of the select-few elite, upper-class aristocrats and corporation CEOs continue to make their pockets fatter as the world around them deteriorates into chaos and anarchy. Arsdale’s The Columbia Connection book is a highly recommended read that takes place in the slums and favelas of the human trafficker’s haven.
This crisis is detailed in Greg Van Arsdale’s “The Columbian Connection” of the Chuck Taylor and Lisa Fontaine Series, which opens with a CIA operative who, just after completing his last mission and considering retiring, overhears a conversation between two human traffickers negotiating the price of trafficked, underage teens while in an airport bar. Chuck, the main character, tracks these human traffickers to Bogotá, Colombia where a twist of events takes a turn for the worst.
An analysis of past findings collected by consultative organizations in Colombia conducting active surveys and field work as well as thorough research and analysis of the two main western regions of Colombia – Valle de Cauca and the coffee region, has been accomplished to decipher the maximum estimate of victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The researchers have identified the three main communities from which survivors come from throughout Valle de Cauca, in Risaralda, in the Antioquia, and in the areas that are the most frequently affected by domestic slavery.
The total figure of human trafficking victims was reached by studying previous reports, consulting groups in Colombia working in the field, and through field work in two key regions in the west of the country: Valle de Cauca and the coffee region. The study identified Valle de Cauca, Risaralda (part of the coffee region) and Antioquia as three key states from which victims originate, as well as the regions to which internal trafficking victims most commonly end. The report highlights the most common types of violations, including sexual exploitation, forced employment and slavery (often referred to as “modern-day slavery”), as well as exploring why people from certain regions are more likely to become victims, concluding that populations are vulnerable when exposed to economic hardship, armed conflict and displacement.
As organized crime syndicate operations continue to expand, progress, and elude law enforcement interference within Colombia, the endeavors of drug pushers, whore mongers, pimps, slave traders, and human traffickers run rampant throughout the slums and streets of the poorest cracks and crevices of the Latin American country, where the death rates maintain a steadily high rate on even the most seemingly-peaceful times of the year.
Bodies show up in the gutters and in the alleyways every single day of the year and perhaps at an even faster rate, women and children are persuaded, lured, or coaxed into a degrading and dehumanizing ordeal in which their captors maximize their profitability for their own gain. When these victims cannot be enticed into the deal, they get kidnapped –taken by force, and sold into slavery against their own will. Modern-day slavery still exists in many places in the world, and the continuing existence of this medieval and barbaric phenomenon truly sheds light on the state of corruption in the poorest corners of the globe.
Alex Writes 