How Much is That Picture?
Allow me to paint a picture for you. If you’ve ever walked down the streets of any large city in the modern world, then you’ve probably seen one of the most common, yet ever intriguing, spectacles that urban worlds have to offer: street vendors.
They seem to be innumerable, and often try to push some sort of odd trinket or curio your way for a “reasonable” price. Yet no matter how many times someone has asked you to purchase their handmade figurines, exclusive CD’s, or unidentifiable vittles, you probably haven’t been asked to buy the one thing that never seems to show up on someone’s grocery list—a human child.
That was what a taxi driver asked Marisa Ugarte one day on the streets of Tijuana, Mexico. Ugarte is an anti-human trafficking activist who focuses her work in the northern border cities of America’s closest southern neighbor. In an interview, Ugarte once contented, “There are more than 5,000 human trafficking cells” in cities like Tijuana, Mexicali, and Tecate. This particular little boy was only five years old—one of many children sold as merchandise every day. Yet the problem is not just about children—thousands upon thousands of women (and to the disbelief of many) men are sold, exploited, enslaved, and subjected to deplorable abuse throughout the region.
Ugarte fights vehemently on behalf of these many voiceless victims, and she is not alone—a myriad of others has tried extensively over the years to petition various organizations and lawmakers to address the issue. However, progress towards the elimination of these crimes is often met by complex and persistent economic, social, and political obstacles. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODOC) and the United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD) have instituted joint efforts to address the human trafficking of persons in Central and South America.
Unfortunately, the latter description of their efforts has proven to serve much to UNODOC and ILANUD’s disadvantage. The trade of human cargo is so rampant and widespread in Latin America that organizations like these often find it difficult to address the overwhelming number of reports that pour into their offices and hotlines, seemingly without an end in sight.
While one might hope that such tragedy is confined to one area of the world, this is unfortunately not so. A fifteen year-old homeless girl named Ana was beguiled into the unforgiving world of sexual and labor exploitation while wandering the streets of her Albanian town. And what about the hundreds of Columbian women regularly recruited to work in Japan’s billion dollar sex entertainment industry? Do they receive any more attention than Tomi, the Thai toddler that was abducted and forced to sell flowers on the streets of Bangkok?
Every now and then, cases like these are attended to and addressed. Different and Equal is the name of the European NGO that was able to relocate and provide counseling for Ana. After getting caught by Bangkok police begging and soliciting illegal goods, Tomi was eventually reunited with his family. But what about the little five-year-old in Tijuana?
The fact is that Ana and Tomi represent the staggering minority—those who remain lost and voiceless on the streets of the world’s biggest and most unforgiving cities. As always there are two sides to any issue: most of the government organizations and NGO’s simply do not possess the manpower, time, or funding to implement more effective means of curing the detrimental social conditions that human trafficking produces. Where are the people who are willing to go out into these very same streets and neighborhoods, who are willing to surge into the necessary office or meeting room, or perhaps put forth the extra dollar or two, to help those who weren’t so lucky as Ana or Tomi.
How much time is enough time? How much money is enough money? How many words is this picture really worth? The reality is, that decision is often much more intricate than the choice between the hotdog and the cheeseburger at the stand down the street.