Carolina's story

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Dear el dispreciau,Carolina¹ thought her dreams were about to come true. Aged 23, she had just lost her job at a supermarket in Colombia and couldn’t believe it when a man she met on Facebook told her he had contacts with TV and movie producers that could help her become an actress if she came to Argentina.On arrival her dream quickly became a nightmare. She was threatened, beaten repeatedly and trafficked for sexual exploitation by the man who had promised her stardom. He prevented her from leaving the house they were sharing.Unfortunately, Carolina is not alone. 77,300 people are estimated to be trapped in modern slavery in Argentina:² a number of these are women trapped in sexual exploitation.
The Argentinian government says it has a National Action Plan that should help identify and give assistance to these victims, but has yet to make this public. To help women like Carolina, we need real action not empty words.Take action now: demand support and justice for victims of sexual exploitation.
Argentina’s government has stated that the National Action Plan exists on several occasions but it has never been published or officially released.³While there are laws to protect women against gender-based violence in Argentina, a National Action Plan would do more to really help women like Carolina. A strong plan should make it easier to identify victims, provide the assistance they need and outline measures to prevent trafficking for sexual exploitation from happening in the first place.Your voice is needed right now -- let’s show our policy makers that there are no excuses for inaction when it comes to tackling these abuses.Call on the government to publish its plan to tackle gender-based violence.
In our country, there are many Carolinas who suffer from violence targeting women -- including sex trafficking -- and too many of them never get justice. Act now and help build a society free from trafficking and violence against women.
Sincerely,Maru, Eugenia, Alex, and the team at Walk Free and ELA
 

^{1 Name has been changed to preserve victim’s identity
2 http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/country/argentina/3 Argentina reported this in its report to the MESECVI, the UN Beijing +20 report, the country report to the CEDAW Committee (January, 2013), the UN UPE (August, 2012). Also, in the report to UNDP-UN Women (2013)}