MEDELLÍN — On a balmy afternoon in Medellín, a Colombian city cradled by velvet green mountains, sisters Yenifer* and Paola* had just finished school for the day. They ambled past vendors selling sweet coffee and fried pastries and arrived at a friend’s house, where they chatted for hours about a jumble of topics: classmates, homework, music, and fashion. 

When the topic of makeup came up, the girls agreed they wanted to buy some but had no money. Without stable work, their mom struggled to afford basic needs, let alone small luxuries.

Their classmate Ana* said she knew someone who might be able to help ease the economic hardship. A few days later, they got a message on Facebook from a stranger.

“[She] said we’d be able to earn a lot of money, have loads of things, loads of food, and basically anything we wanted,” said Yenifer.

The girl told them they could be just like her, but first, they would need to have sex with foreign tourists.

“They wanted us to sell our virginity,” said Paola. “I needed money. I wanted to help my mom with things for the house. We were really scared, but we went through with it.”

Yenifer was 14 years old. Paola was 12. 

Over the past few years, Colombia has benefited from a tourism boom, largely due to an improved security situation after decades of internal conflict, as well as the country’s impressive biodiversity, mild climate, and vibrant music scene. Once plagued by violence, kidnappings, and drug cartels, the country received 3.8 million foreign visitors in 2023, according to the Ministry of Commerce, Tourism, and Industry. These numbers are up 24 percent from 2022 and up 30 percent from 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.  

But the surge of tourists in the city of Medellín has coincided with it becoming an epicenter of sexual exploitation. Sex work is legal in Colombia when both parties consent and are at least 18 years old — but NGOs and government officials say there has been a rise in foreigners traveling to the country to solicit illegal sex with minors. 

“In 2019, when a victim would be referred to us, she’d be able to identify one foreigner, maybe two. It was just a bunch of lone wolves,” said Tyler Schwab, founder and president of Libertas International, one of the organizations in Medellín supporting minors who are victims of sexual exploitation. “Now the girls we’re getting referred to are naming three, four, or five foreigners who all exploited them, and these guys are now a little more coordinated,” said Schwab. 

While many of the foreign abusers come from the United States — the country that accounted for 27 percent of total overseas visitors in 2023 — abusers also come from China, Mexico, Germany, the United Kingdom, India, and Canada. In one recent case, a 17-year-old girl showed Libertas International the Facebook, Tinder, and Instagram accounts of nearly 150 foreigners who were sending her messages of a sexual nature.

“With the promotion of Medellín as a tourist paradise, as well as TV series about drug traffickers and sex in the country, the arrival of foreigners in search of drugs and sex with adults, but also the exploitation of minors, increased,” said Jazmín Santa, spokesperson for Medellín’s Roundtable Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls, Boys, and Adolescents (Mesa Contra La ESCNNA). The Roundtable is made up of NGOs, academics, and representatives of local law enforcement and has been meeting regularly since 2010 to share data about the problem and recommendations on how to tackle it.

A report published by the roundtable in February revealed that victims of sexual exploitation by tourists often have commonalities, including a history of being sexually abused elsewhere, a history of violence in the family, having family connections to criminal groups, and coming from economically depressed communities. 

While most families condemn sexual exploitation, others benefit economically, according to the roundtable report: “It relieves them of their responsibilities. They end up normalizing it, justifying it, and even being thankful for it.”

At least two minors that More to Her Story spoke to were being trafficked by their own families for financial gain.

Laura* was 15 years old and struggling for money when men began exploiting her for sex. Now 17, she reflects on one particular night in March 2023 when an American man invited her and her friends to a nightclub not far from where she lived. Knowing the girls were underage, the doormen refused them entry. However, once the American offered to pay double the entry price, the club staff accepted. “There was a private area and a table full of alcohol. He paid for everything and didn’t ask for anything in return at that moment,” Laura says.

Extravagant parties awash with alcohol and drugs became recurring scenes for Laura and other girls she knew of a similar age. Laura says men would manipulate the girls into having sex, usually at a rented apartment, by bribing them with money, phones, and other items they wanted or needed. 

“There was always another level to them where you knew something was going to happen,” she says.

Girls are found by foreign men through various means: in zones commonly associated with legal sex work, on social media, through other girls that are already being exploited, or through organized local criminal groups. 

In a report summarizing the situation in the city, Medellín’s roundtable raised its concern about tourist packages created by criminal networks offering sexual encounters with minors. Some packages would include entry to parties, alcohol, and sex with girls, while other traffickers would organize sexual encounters at short-term rental properties.

In April, Medellín’s mayor, Federico Gutíerrez, announced the arrest of Stefan Andrés Correa, an American tourist who was arrested at a Miami airport just before boarding a flight to Colombia. Messages between him and a trafficker were found on his phone by law enforcement: “Is she going to allow me to go all the way, or is she going to cry and ask me to stop?” Correa wrote about an 11-year-old girl. Videos were also found on his phone of him engaging in sexual acts with at least ten different girls between 9 and 15 years old whom he’d met on previous visits to the country.

Although Correa was arrested, most criminals have evaded capture. 

Between 2010 and 2022 in Medellín, only 7.4 percent of commercial sexual exploitation cases reported to the police resulted in an arrest, and only 4.8 percent of arrests resulted in a conviction, according to figures published by Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office that were analyzed by the roundtable.

Advocates say the data exists amid a high prevalence of underreporting. Although sex work is only legal when both parties are 18, the age of consent for sexual relations in Colombia is only 14 years old. Many victims and even their families aren’t always aware of this law. “Victims don’t identify as victims,” explained Santa, which creates a barrier in them denouncing what is happening to them."Without victims, there isn’t a case to put forward.”

In March, one particular case highlighted the failure of authorities to hold criminals to account. American citizen Timothy Livingston was found in a jacuzzi in an upmarket hotel room with a 12-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl after an individual had alerted police to a possible case of sexual exploitation. 

The case triggered national outrage, not only because of the alleged crime but because after being detained for 12 hours by police, Livingston was released. Police said there wasn’t enough evidence at that moment to charge him with a crime, and he hadn’t been caught in the act of sexually abusing the girls. It was later reported in the Colombia press that used condoms and drugs had been found in the room, although this hasn’t been officially confirmed.

Immediately following the scandal, Medellin mayor Guttíerez, who took office just two months prior to the incident, implemented a flurry of “shock measures” to mitigate the rampant sexual exploitation of minors. These included not allowing minors into certain areas after 7 p.m. unless accompanied by their parents, awareness campaigns such as posters in tourist hotspots and airports, early closing hours for bars and clubs in specific areas, as well as a temporary ban on sex work.

“Compared to last year, we have increased 1100% the arrests of foreigners dedicated to the sexual exploitation of minors,” Guttíerez said in a radio interview in October. However, advocates warn that the numbers are misguided and still small. 

So far, in 2024, only 12 foreigners have been arrested. In 2023, the figure was just one.

Advocates warn that Colombia has a long way to go before the issue of sexual exploitation of minors is completely eradicated. But preventative measures that “attack the patriarchy, machismo, misogyny, hegemonic masculinity, racism, and classism” that prevails in Colombian society, as well as implementing policies to address the structural causes of sexual exploitation, such as poverty, inequality, and violence in all its forms, is a strong place to start, according to Medellín’s Roundtable.

National and local governments, businesses, and NGOs are trying to bolster such efforts. The tourism and hospitality industries, as well as local law enforcement, are receiving more training on when to recognize the exploitation of minors and how to prevent it. Cooperation between Colombian and American authorities to stop pedophiles entering the country has also been strengthened. Migration officials in Colombia have access to a U.S. database called Angel Watch, which allows them to see if U.S. citizens have previous criminal records for sexual exploitation and deny them entry.

In Medellín, NGOs continue their efforts to protect girls, including putting those from vulnerable communities in contact with affirming communities to engage them in activities like sports and music — all while illuminating the stories of victims.

“When you take a survivor in, and she feels safe, she feels respected and supported, and she has her basic needs met, she’s often able to identify more victims who need our help — and eventually we find more abusers,” said Schwab, from Libertas International.

Two of Laura’s abusers are now behind bars, although the mental scars of her abuse remain, and she’s currently getting help for drug addiction. The man who sexually exploited Yenifer and Paola still hasn’t been captured. 

Sitting in a busy cafe, the sisters say they’re trying to get on with their lives. They’re studying hard and love to go roller skating when they get some free time. 

“I still have moments where I feel down about what happened,” Paola says, “but I get through them by thinking about everything good that I have, the things I’ve achieved, and the things I am going to achieve.”

Despite ongoing efforts to eradicate the problem by NGOs and authorities, for many other victims of sexual exploitation in Colombia who haven't been rescued, their futures are still very much uncertain.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.