Posted August 10, In principle, I love the idea of the Olympics. But Rio de Janeiro does present many challenges as a host city. With so much money in one place, Catholic Priests and Nuns have issued warnings for people to keep an eye out for children who are being sexually exploited by the rich tourists who have come to the city. Organized crime has seen an opportunity and are making girls as young as 14 available as prostitutes.
For a friend and colleague of mine, the situation is much more personal. Renata Liborio from the Universidade Estadual Paulista began a project in to interview 8 child sex workers in her home state of Sao Paulo. The stories she collected were recorded and published, mostly in Portuguese academic journals.
But last year, Dr. Liborio decided she would re-contact all 8 girls, now young woman, and produce a documentary film to chronicle what had happened to them after her tape recorder was turned off. The film's trailer is tentatively titled " Unheard Voices of Brazil. When finished Dr. Liborio is sourcing the funding to move to full production , the film will give us a glimpse into the lives of child prostitutes as they get older. What happens to those girls who we see pictures of on the news? The ones who already look jaded and soulless on the streets of cities like Rio, Phnom Penh, and Bangkok?
What is intriguing is that they survive. Some have continued to struggle with addictions, others have changed their lives. Some are, sadly still working in the sex trade. Regardless of where they have ended up, what is clear is that their lives were touched for the better by people like Dr. Liborio and the organization that reached out to them when they were still children. For me, there are powerful lessons here. First, world class events like the Olympics bring with them tremendous risks for the vulnerable populations whose homes the world invades.
But the children being coerced into sexually exploitative situations are much closer to the ritzy hotels and spaces where the tourists gather. In Rio, tourists are urged by the Catholic diocese to report child prostitutes if they suspect that they see them. Many of these children ended up on the streets because they were vulnerable to abuse at home.
