The harshest side of tourism in Medellín: Child abuse, sex and drugs

The decision to prohibit the supply and demand of sexual services in a tourist area of Medellin, extraordinary measure that seeks to stop the sexual exploitation, especially of minors, has put on the table the complex reality of a city that in recent years has become attractive to visitors who are after sex and drugs.

This Colombian city, recognized for its urban, social and cultural transformation to shake off a violent past, is experiencing turbulent days after shocking cases of child sexual abuse were registered, among them that of the American Timothy Alan Livingston, who left the country after being found with two minors aged 12 and 13 in a hotel room.

A judge issued an arrest warrant against Livingston last Friday and the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, announced through his X account that “The Government will request extradition from the Government of the USA to the pedophile from the Medellín hotel.”

Negative tourist profile

Carlos Calle, leader of the Tourism Observatory of the Medellín District Personery, tells EFE that this entity has issued a “countless alerts”, some related to the sexual exploitation of minors, a scourge that the authorities have not been able to contain with “inoperative” measures such as the curfew in commercial corridors for night recreation in sectors such as El Poblado.

“Unfortunately, I have to say: there is a negative tourist profile, which we do not want in the city. He comes because he finds in Medellín a place where he can do what he cannot in his country. “He finds here an absence of institutionality to operate,” Calle asserts.

It specifies that they come to look for a service offer that is “intimately linked to crime, such as sexual exploitation, prostitution and the issue of narcotics,” Therefore, it urges to reformulate the “outdated” public policies related to tourism in Medellín.

“In 2015, tourism was about business, today the tourism that exists is more about leisure and entertainment”says.

According to the Observatory of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls, Boys and Adolescents (ESCNNA) of the NGO Valientes, in 2023, 329 victims were reported for crimes associated with the sexual exploitation of minors in Medellín.

The director of this NGO, Katherine Jaramillo, explains to EFE that sexual exploitation in tourist contexts “it happens in all tourist territories”, but since Medellín and Cartagena are media cities “It is believed that they are the only territories where this crime occurs.”

But there are figures after the pandemic that leave the island of San Andrés, a Caribbean territory about which “little is said about crime”, with the highest number of victims, according to the CSEC rate.

However, he points out that it must “rescue” to Medellín from the image of a city where you get sex and drugs, “even at low price“, and rescue Colombia from the “bad image” from a country where minors are not protected.

Open-air brothel?

The Colombian writer Carolina Sanín raised a storm in 2022 with what she wrote on her X account: “Medellín, an open-air brothel. (…) I come every year, and every year the degradation is more impressive. How sad”.

At that time El Colombiano, the most important newspaper in the city, put a magnifying glass on the matter and recorded in its report that there is no data on how many women practice prostitution in Medellín, but they are “tens and dozens” of women who walk at any time along Calle 10 or Parque Lleras, tourist places in El Poblado, an area where bars and perreo clubs gather.

The president of the Union of Sex Workers in Antioquia (Sintrasexa), Valery Parra, tells EFE that in Medellín there is no “comprehensive characterization” of the people who are currently practicing sex work.

“It is not even known how many we are, the different variables such as age group, nationality, family group, level of education are not discriminated against”says Parra, who rejects the decision of the Medellín Mayor’s Office to suspend the supply and demand of sexual services, because he feels that they are “confusing” the sexual exploitation, human trafficking, pimping and CSEC with the free and voluntary exercise of sexual work by adults.

Although the union “rejects all sexual crimes”, Parra specifies that “Sex tourism has existed for decades and they are not going to destroy it overnight with punitive actions,” It also urges the construction of a public policy on sex work in the city and monitoring and oversight of hotels, hostels and motels to prevent the violation of minors.

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