UN: Indigenous children of Ecuador are taken to Cali for begging

Venezuelan women forced to prostitute themselves in Cartagena, Ecuadorian indigenous children taken to Cali for begging, Colombians sexually exploited in China or Chile; Colombians forced to perform bonded labor in Argentina: for the UN, Colombia is a country of origin, transit, and destination of human trafficking.

“Trafficking is increasingly concentrated in the same region, on the same continent,” Bo Mathiasen, a Colombian representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told AFP, commenting on the latest report on this scourge.

According to the report, released in December in New York, 63,251 trafficking victims were detected in 106 countries between 2012 and 2014.

The UN is concerned about this “very lucrative” illicit business, which globally moves about $ 32 billion a year, the official said, noting that nearly a third of all victims worldwide are minors.

In Central America and the Caribbean, however, the percentage of child victims is even higher, with 62 and 64 percent respectively, he said.