Ricky Martin Foundation Opens Pavilion on Human Trafficking in Puerto Rico

(Before It's News)

The Ricky Martin Foundation opened Friday a pavilion in San Juan on human trafficking – the second most lucrative crime in the world – to raise awareness among the island’s population as to the hideous consequences of this scourge.

The announcement was made by the Puerto Rican artist’s press office, which added that the pavilion will be located in the Plaza Las Americas mall, the biggest in the Caribbean and the second largest in Latin America.

This is the second time the Ricky Martin Foundation has set up such a center on the island. In April 2012 he inaugurated another, which stayed open for the rest of the year.

The Ricky Martin Foundation is dedicated to combating human trafficking, considered one of the world’s worst blights together with drug and arms trafficking. The Puerto Rican artist got involved in this cause after a trip to India in 2002, where he witnessed at first-hand the vast extent of the Asian nation’s traffic in children.

Martin decided to join forces with sociologist Cesar Rey, the University of Puerto Rico, or UPR, John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and 10 researchers to try and rid the Caribbean island of this evil.

The study “Trafficking in Persons in Puerto Rico: an Invisible Challenge,” presented by Martin in February 2010 at the UPR, compiles case histories of people who were victims of this crime.

The study says that more than 800,000 people are victims of human trafficking on the U.S. border, and that 50 percent of those affected are minors.

The report, the first to use the same parameters for the United States as for all other countries, seeks to pressure countries into taking strong, effective measures against this crime.

Published in Latino Daily News

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