Uruguay against child sexual exploitation

The following testimony was written by Chloe, who worked as a volunteer for the campaign "Uruguay, País de Buentrato", and before finishing her time with the organization, shared some thoughts about her experience:

Name: Chloe Vraney

Age: 23 years old

From: Green Bay, WI. USA

I work with Claves 3 days a week as an international volunteer. The work of Claves is enacted through courses, publications, trainings, workshops, interactive interventions, and displays of simple acts of good treatment.

Additionally, Claves is the organizer of the campaign "Uruguay País de Buentrato", which works to end child prostitution, sexual abuse, and sex trafficking/tourism. Essentially, the program methodology consists of youth protagonists leading campaign work to raise awareness about a problem that affects other youth just like them. For example, we go out into public spaces to interact with people in the street, perform symbolic vaccinations against maltreatment towards children, and raise awareness about the hotline phone number to call for cases of child commercial sexual exploitation. There are a ton of campaign activities all year long, especially during the summer tourist months.

Due to this, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Maldonado, Colonia, and Paysandú various times last summer to spread the word about the campaigns, as well as to prepare volunteers for when they take to the streets and raise awareness about the realities of sex tourism and child prostitution.

Our first big youth intervention was in January, when two different groups of 40 volunteers from various parts of Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil met in Maldonado (the eastern, coastal part of Uruguay) for a week each. We spent each day planning and executing public interventions in populated locations, such as beaches, tourist centers, shopping¡ malls, waterfronts, plazas, parks, and more.

We interacted with individuals walking on the streets or relaxing on the beach to tell them about the campaign and give them the materials that include the hotline number for reporting suspicions or knowledge of sexual exploitation of minors.

One of our main projects was targeting the local businesses on the main streets and asking them to post a sticker in the window that also publicizes the phone number of the hotline.

With the support of the Ministry of Tourism and the government, our idea was to encourage each business to commit to the prevention of commercial sexual exploitation by having the campaign´s sticker in their windows. Thanks to our amazing volunteers, it was a HUGE success! A month after that, we did the same types of interventions in Colonia del Sacramento (west side of Uruguay), and a month after that, in Paysandú (northwest). These public interventions and youth get-togethers are extremely gratifying for the work that we do and also the time we share together.

I cannot express enough praise of love, joy, and amazement for these 15-30 year old volunteers that come from all over the country. They are extraordinary and inspiring individuals, committing to a vital cause and showing up with all of their encouragement and enthusiasm. They commit an enormous amount of time, energy, and protagonism to this program, and I feel so impressed and lucky to know them.

Working as a volunteer for Claves has been an amazing, beautiful experience full of love, support, buentrato (good treatment), and awesome people, and while my one-year program has come to an end, the thought of leaving this amazing community is one that I am not ready to confront yet.

Links:

• Claves website

Last April, over 10.000 tourists were reached by the awareness campaign: “Uruguay against child sexual exploitation”, during the celebration of the traditional Tourism Week in the city of Paysandú. The campaign started in December and continued through April, raising awareness in the most touristic areas of the country for the protection of children and adolescents against commercial sexual exploitation.

During Tourism Week, thousands of tourists gathered in Paysandú to celebrate Easter break and enjoy their vacation.  It was the perfect moment to promote the campaign and raise awareness among tourists and the local community on the prevention of child sexual exploitation.

Youth promoters dispersed throughout the city and visited strategic places like the bus terminal, port, hotels, and restaurants. They talked to tourists and neighbours about the campaign, and delivered brochures with information on how to protect children and adolescents from sexual exploitation.

Through the campaign “Uruguay against child sexual exploitation”, youth promoters are taking the lead in exposing the problem of sexual exploitation to society. It’s necessary that people acknowledge the existence of this problem in order to act.

Will you join us?