Seeds of Care: Addressing Gender-based Violence in Cartagena

The Colombian city of Cartagena has become a popular destination for tourists looking to experience the sun, sand, and the colonial-era charms of the city’s walled “Old Town.” Many of these tourists will pass through without realizing that, perversely, Cartagena’s popularity has made it a hub for human trafficking. In one recent, high-profile case, Colombian authorities arrested 18 foreigners and local officials for their involvement in the sexual exploitation of more than 250 women and girls. Colombia has made cracking down on this illicit industry a priority. Until the US Government’s abrupt cut off of foreign assistance funding on January 21, 2025, the American Bar Association (ABA) had been a trusted partner in this effort.

Along with other anti-trafficking programs, the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative was an implementer of the USAID-funded Conectando Caminos por los Derechos (CCD) program, which ran from 2020-2024. At the request of Colombia’s Presidential Council for Women’s Issues, this program developed Semillas de Cuidado (Seeds of Care), a toolkit to help Colombian authorities prevent and respond to gender-based violence (a broad term that encompasses the physical, psychological, and sexual abuse that so often characterize trafficking).

Unsurprisingly, Colombian organizations in the Cartagena area were among the first to express interest in the toolkit. Among them was Colombian non-profit Comité Barrial de Emergencias (COMBAS), an organization that protects children from sexual exploitation and trafficking. After attending workshops with ABA ROLI to understand the toolkit, COMBAS used what they had learned to create an ensemble of puppets—La Tropa de Trapo (the Fabric Brigade)—and took to the streets of Cartagena, where most trafficked children are entrapped. There, they performed a puppet show in which a child’s family teaches her how to keep herself safe from predators. As these performances went on, crowds gathered to watch; shopkeepers approached COMBAS staff asking how they could help. As interest in the initiative swelled, the ABA provided COMBAS with leaflets listing local resources they could contact when they saw signs of trafficking.

La Tropa de Trapo was but one of many, many applications of Semillas de Cuidado. Shortly after developing the toolkit, the ABA held workshops in 12 Colombian cities to make local government entities, officials, and non-profit organizations aware of it. “Our inclusive approach [to workshops], which encouraged everyone to participate, meant that attendees not only learned but contributed their own methodologies and resources, effectively decentralizing leadership of processes [to combat trafficking],” said Milena Montenegro, the ABA ROLI staffer who spearheaded development of Semillas de Cuidado. Since the 12-city tour, requests for the toolkit have rolled in: officials in the Colombian Province of Norte de Santander have used the toolkit hundreds of times, photocopying it on their own dime to widen its circulation; the Free University of Barranquilla—a university in another coastal city plagued by trafficking—made the toolkit available to students at its law clinic. In the last week of February 2025, more than two years after the CCD program ended, ABA ROLI staff fielded a request from Colombia-based United Nations officials to use the toolkit. Demand for Semillas de Cuidado—which has long since outlived the program that created it—reinforces the narrative that foreign assistance funding can achieve lasting impact.