2 Sep 2010 • Trafficking and exploitation Colombia

Colombia: The Pravisanni Case – A Cornerstone

- Published by Darcissac, Marion

Following the sentence of Paolo Pravisanni, a pedophile tourist convicted of numerous cases of sexual abuse, incitement of minors to prostitution and drug abuse, Freddys del Toro describes how he has the impression that a whole city is freed from sexual offenders. Freddys del Toro is a lawyer for Terre des hommes in its project to fight against sexual exploitation in Colombia, and represented the civil parties in this trial.

The culture of silence in Cartagena was shaken severely with the condemnation of Paolo Pravisanni. The silence covering sexual exploiters like this Italian tourist is broken. But there was a price to pay.
Sadly, it took all the vitality, strength and youth of a 15-year-old boy: Jesid Torres Tovar, whose terrible death was preceded by other wrongdoings and crimes which came in addition to other offenses: incitement to prostitution, child pornography, sexual relations inflicted on two other minors of 13 and 14 years.
The Italian was not the alone – two elderly women also took part in the atrocities as accomplices or accessories and abused these children, as well.

The whole town had been following the events on the media and finally breathed a sigh of relief and happiness, while the paedophiles breathed a sigh of deception. . In Italy, the home country of the aggressor, the news was reported in 17 newspapers, influencing other individuals to consider carefully before travelling to Colombia to satisfy their perverted desires, where it would be easy to realize them, thanks to their money and the marginalization of our child prostitutes.

The sentence now passed is dividing the legal history of the country in two: before and after the Pravisanni case. And that means a lot. It is the first sentence of its kind to be passed against a foreigner, punishing sexual exploitation.

There had been an urgent need for justice in similar cases where justice had not been applied, and this was why the whole town exuded happiness after the condemnation. Only four days before Jesid died, 11 Israelis had gotten away with taking a young girl and several women to an old house in Cartagena, where they forced the girl to sexual intercourse, to take cocaine and drink alcohol. But the town and the young girl were mocked, as the affair never came to justice due to a legal irregularity.

Six months later, a foreigner was caught having sexual relations with a young boy in the toilets of a notorious shopping centre in town. He came free due to the lack of a suitable interpreter.
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The Pravisanni case has therefore been seen as a dose of oxygen, in spite of the delays due to repeated adjournments –endless delays caused by the defence. But Cartagena demonstrated throughout the trial that it would never be the same when faced with these abuses. No more keeping silent!

Despite all this, the continueous fight against sexual exploitation of children is not going not be easy. The town suffers from being the main destination for people displaced by the armed conflicts which mark this country, enormously increasing the miserable conditions on the outskirts of this historic and beautiful place, whose historic poverty is comparable to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, with one difference: the favelas of Rio are built of brick, whilst ours are made of simple plastic bags.

The areas with the most displaced people, Pozón and Nelson Mandela, reflect this phenomenon, as does La Boquilla, which recently went astray when failing to provide child protection. There are cases of families who, in the midst of the legal procedure to defend their children, betrayed the cause to favour the aggressors, tempted by false promises and gifts which never arrive. La Boquilla, plagued by modern hotels, high taxes and public services too costly for the inhabitants, as well as precarious work conditions, has a culture of connivance with the trade of flesh.

On the one hand, there is the obvious vulnerability of the children, and on the other, the masses of tourists arriving daily in Cartagena, where tourists are viewed as a source of hope, a hope often distorted by despair, as in the cases mentioned above. But are those isolated cases?

Certainly not. These are the most memorable cases, and that is why we hear about them. How many similar, but less sensational cases happen in this town but are disregarded? This is why statistics fail to reflect the reality. Aas the judge expressed it, we are dealing with “cases which happen behind closed doors”, and the number of sexually abused children– not only by tourists, but also by the locals – is immeasurable in Cartagena.

Today, the problem is not tourism itself. The problem is the kind of tourism. It is a fact that in sustainable tourism, such cases would be unthinkable. To develop tourism without taking its sustainability into consideration surely leads to its own death. Sex tourism, with its culture of drugs and beach, does not mean any added value to the town, quite on the contrary: it is more harmful in terms of collateral effects.

What has now happened should be a trigger: From now on, an eye of surveillance should be kept on this city, and greater efforts should be made at state level, following the example of civil society.

The Pravisanni case is the cornerstone to a new path, however hazardous, which will lead to the protection of our children.

FREDDYS DEL TORO DIAZ
Lawyer of the civil party in the Pravisanni trial.
Terre des hommes Foundation – Lausanne