(Photo by iStock/Pinkypills) 

Human traffickers have forced hundreds of women, children, and men into sexual slavery in Colombia during the past decade. According to Colombia’s Ministry of the Interior and Justice, 686 cases of human trafficking occurred within the country from January 2013 to July 2020. Many of those seized were women, children, and Venezuelan migrants. 

To combat this crime, Migración Colombia, the nation’s border control agency; the US Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM); and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) launched a mobile application called LibertApp last July. Pressing the app’s panic button immediately sends the user’s live geolocation data to the Colombian Ministry of the Interior’s Anti-Human Trafficking Operations Center (COAT), where an expert anti-trafficking team investigates the report.

The app also functions as a resource hub for information and prevention. It offers an educational module (available in both English and Spanish) that explains what human trafficking is, who is the most at risk, and the most common strategies that traffickers use to isolate and exploit victims. LibertApp also includes a global directory of consulates’ contact information that users can access for support.

While COAT and Migración Colombia now manage the app, IOM, an international organization that supports migrant communities and advises national governments on migration policy, developed the original concept, provided technical support, created user profiles, and built the educational module. IOM saw LibertApp as a new tool to support high-risk groups such as Venezuelan migrants and refugees. “It is necessary to permanently search for different strategies for the prevention of trafficking” and to ensure the “rescue of victims who are in Colombia or abroad,” says Ana Durán-Salvatierra, IOM Colombia’s chief of mission.

Venezuelan migrants are the most high-risk group for human trafficking in Colombia, largely because the majority are residing in the country illegally and are hesitant to contact authorities for fear of deportation. “I think it’s universally agreed that underreporting of trafficking is one of the biggest issues that is driving a lot of the problems with increasing [the] numbers of prosecutions and actually being able to catch people and save survivors,” notes a US Department of State representative with PRM, who requested anonymity in order to comply with the deparment’s communications policy. 

PRM funded the app, which had a budget of $15,000. The investment was part of the department’s overall contribution through the United Nations appeal known as the Refugee and Migrant Response Plan, a global initiative that had granted a total of $276.4 million to Colombia as of November 2020.

In less than a year of operation, 246 people have used the app to make reports, culminating in a handful of investigations and rescues. The most notable success story occurred last summer when COAT received a report from LibertApp that led to the rescue of a Venezuelan minor from a bar in Maní, in the Casanare region of Colombia, that was being run as a brothel. During the raid, authorities captured two Colombian citizens alleged to have managed the establishment and who coerced 15 women into sexual slavery.

For Durán-Salvatierra, the raid proved that apps like LibertApp are a valuable tool. “The fact that the rescue of a minor who was being sexually exploited and who reported her situation through the application’s panic button could have been carried out a few days after the launch of LibertApp is proof for the IOM that these types of applications do work and are absolutely necessary to combat human trafficking,” she says.

With user adoption of the app still in its infancy, Migración Colombia, IOM, and PRM recognize the need to raise awareness. As part of a promotional strategy, “Migración Colombia is working with IOM and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to launch socialization campaigns aimed at all audiences,” says Rafael Dario Eugenio Parada, a subdirector at Migración Colombia.

Reaching migrant populations and high-risk groups is more challenging than ever before because COVID-19 social distance restrictions are still in place across Colombia. But as more success stories like Casanare emerge, LibertApp is proving how technology can be used to stop human trafficking and save lives.

Read more stories by Tim Keary.