"... Because of the economic situation that the children live in, they see that the money is not enough for the parents and they decide to leave (outside the community, the municipality or the country) to find a job ... Sometimes they are taken with deceit "

Hilda Juana Terrace Brito (HT)

The problem of trafficking in persons is profound and latent in the country, a situation from which the municipality of Nebaj is not exempt, where Hilda Terraza works as a School and Community Program Officer, in the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons project. Save The Children According to what she has been able to observe, the problem becomes invisible because it is not disclosed and, whether due to fear or ignorance, not all cases are reported. Such are the reasons why the project has proposed to work in the training of students, teachers and community leaders, to strengthen the protection of the most vulnerable groups: children and adolescents (children and adolescents). In poor communities in Guatemala, many of them need to look for a job to financially support their families and, because of their innocence, are easy targets for human traffickers.

“… Many people come from outside to offer jobs. They leave flyers on the posts, saying: good job opportunity, no study is needed and there is a good payment. So, like it or not, because of the economic situation in which we find ourselves, anyone says: I'm going to try. Suddenly, they disappear and take them away ... ”(HT).

It is a large number of girls and adolescents who are victims of human trafficking when they are looking for a job occupation. Many times they are deceived, they make them believe that they are hiring them for a job, when the intentions really are others. It is frequent that they offer them a comfortable, stable and well-paid job and, certainly, they are taking them, for example, to a tortilleria, in which the working hours begin before dawn and concludes well into the night, where, in addition They keep them locked up, unable to escape, sleeping and eating in deplorable conditions. The experience can be even more traumatic, even when the destination is a canteen, where they serve as waitresses and sex servers.

Human trafficking is strongly linked to migration. The risks of illegal traffic are very high and children are highly exposed to situations in which their integrity is compromised. However, according to Hilda, the economic need is so great that parents often see migration as the only option to improve their quality of life and decide to take their children with them, because they think that if they are accompanied by a minor, it will be easier for them to enter the country of destination.

With the intention of preventing such violations of the rights of children, the Trafficking Prevention project works at school and community level. In schools, it deals with offering educational tools for the prevention of violence and for strengthening the culture of denunciation, through the training of students and teachers, with playful and participatory methodologies. The work with community leaders has consisted of the creation of protection commissions, whose function is to be vigilant to avoid possible situations of sexual and family violence, as well as cases of human trafficking.

In the educational centers, in addition to the training workshops, the CREA recreational centers were implemented, which are classrooms equipped with pedagogical and audiovisual resources, in which students and teachers can deepen on the mentioned topics, in a fun and enjoyable way.

After two years of execution, it has been observed that children:

• know your rights;

• are aware of the risks of migrating without documents;

• recognize the different types of violence:

• express themselves more fluently and know that they have the right to talk about what happens to them;

• are empowered to report situations of violence that may occur to them;

• know what instances they should go to if they became victims of some type of violence.

As for the community authorities, it has been achieved that:

• are interested in the subject;

• be clear on how and where to report (reporting and referral routes);

• assume a tangible commitment to the community to reduce violence and human trafficking, through the formation of violence prevention commissions.

Hilda is clear that, for the project to be sustainable, the involvement of community authorities is essential. The hope of permanence of the actions carried out is placed in the prevention committees, who have assumed the commitment to continue training community leaders.

“What we do not want is for that to end, we want the commission to be maintained, for sustainability… Because they live there, in the communities… The permanent ones are the community leaders. So that is what we want (the execution of the project) to be permanent and sustainable ”(HT).