It was an emotional day on Friday, October 1st at the Las Lagunas Theatre on the occasion of International Day against Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking in Women, Girls and Boys, celebrated on September 23rd. Filmmaker, Mabel Lozano, gave a presentation on this social scourge. “Fear makes women unable to flee”, explained Lozano, an activist and tireless fighter for the eradication of this scourge. More than 40 million women and girls are today victims of trafficking in the world and Spain is also the largest consumer of sexual exploitation in Europe. “The celebration of this event coincides with the 90th anniversary of the approval of women’s suffrage in Spain and we still see today how many changes we must undertake to achieve a society of real and effective equality”, said the mayor, Josele González (PSOE), during his speech.
“To end this scourge it is necessary to make it visible and for all to become aware of its existence in our environment. The rejection of society towards the trafficking of women is fundamental for its eradication. Without a demand there would be no prostitution and without prostitution there would be no trafficking. Women who are commodified, dehumanized, and objectified suffer for a sole purpose, and that is the enrichment of pimps and the leisure and entertainment of so-called clients. We are facing the slavery of the XXI century”, sentenced the councillor for Equality and Diversity, Natalia Martínez (PSOE).
A true story
Those attending the event saw the documentary ‘Biography of the corpse of a woman’, directed by Lozano, winner of a Goya 2021 award. It is a documentary that makes our hairs stand on end, based on the true story of a woman, victim of trafficking. Yamilet Giraldo came to Spain deceived. She was captured in Colombia to be sexually exploited here. She thought she was going to work in a textile company so that she could raise her children. She managed to escape her hell when she was transferred from one brothel to another. She rebuilt her life, had more children and was happily married to a man who loved her. She was a protected police witness and yet she decided to report her case to protect other women.
That brave gesture cost her her life. She was shot dead in the middle of the street, in the presence of her son. Yamilet’s story is the “story of a very brave woman. I have been with people, sometimes, very cruel. I have been in the jungle in Bolivia and I have seen how they burned children alive, in the drug trafficking zone.
I have seen many monsters, but also when you tell this most painful story, you think what an act of generosity! A woman who comes from a country like Colombia where life is worth nothing and that she has had the courage to denounce when she already has everything, she has a life. She just does it so that it doesn’t happen to other women. Well, that is Yamilet’s legacy and this is my legacy to you”, said Lozano. Not only do they, the victims, speak of her in the videos, but also the perpetrators, “the bad guys”, as she calls them. Therefore, during the act the documentary ‘The pimp’ was screened, where it is the pimp himself who tells the story from his perspective.
A man who “was in jail for capturing, transferring and exploiting 1,500 women, many of them minors. They sentenced him to 27 years in prison and he served only three: less than half a day for each of these girls whom he savagely exploited. Many of them committed suicide, like Lucia, who is mentioned in the documentary, or many died of drug overdoses and they threw them on the roads to be collected by the Samur. That is reality”, clarified the filmmaker.
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