Puerto Rican superstar, Ricky Martin, through his Ricky Martin Foundation, has signed an agreement with IOM Colombia to help fight human trafficking in the country. Martin, winner of the 1999 Grammy Award for "Best Latin Pop Performance" and named by the Los Angeles Times as "The Latin Artist to Watch for 1999”, was in Colombia as part of a world concert tour. The singer, who has produced four multi-platinum solo albums, has sold more than 15 million records worldwide.

The Ricky Martin Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to advocate for the well being of children around the world in critical areas such as social justice, education, and health. The Foundation works to raise awareness among English and Spanish speaking audiences on ways to assist child victims of human trafficking.

From left to right, Diego Beltrand, Chief of Mission, OIM Colombia, Ricky Martin and Angel Saltos, Executive Director, Ricky Martin Foundation.

"More than half of trafficking victims worldwide are children, forced into pornography, prostitution and labor servitude. Human trafficking is an unscrupulous market that generates around $10 billion dollars annually. In order to combat one of the cruelest problems in the world today, we must create alliances. Signing an agreement of collaboration with IOM Colombia to fight children trafficking strengthens our mission. We believe in partners and hope to establish a call to action in more countries," said Martin.

The collaboration between IOM and the Ricky Martin Foundation is part of trafficking prevention campaign that IOM is launching in Colombia next year. The campaign will include TV commercials with the number of a telephone helpline (01 8000 522020) that provides assistance and information, including reports of trafficking in Colombia.

The commercials will also focus on child sex exploitation and are supported by the Ricky Martin Foundation, the Inter-American Development Bank, The Inter-Agency Committee against Trafficking in Colombia, which is made up of 14 state institutions, the Dutch Embassy and IOM.

For his active work against in this field, the US State Department has chosen Ricky to be part of their 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report in the “International Heroes” section.

“Ricky Martin's visit to Colombia was an opportunity to emphasize the massive mobilization of civil society against human trafficking and the social awareness on the need to protect the victims, particularly children, of sexual exploitation,” says Diego Beltrand, IOM's chief of mission in Bogota. “It also comes at an important time in the fight against trafficking.” A new law against human trafficking in the country, which defines trafficking as a crime with a 13 to 23 year jail sentence, has just come into force. The different types of trafficking are also stated such as trafficking for forced labor, begging, forced marriage and for sexual exploitation.