Education is a powerful tool to empower vulnerable youth all over the world. But is it effective to prevent sex trafficking?

On my first trip to the Colombian/Venezuelan border in 2019 I could not help but feel overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of children and teens that left everything behind to survive. Many unaccompanied, yet some with one or more of their parents, they arrived in a new country with only a few bags. Oddly, I found myself feeling anxious about them missing so much school. In perspective, these are children and teens that had suffered far longer than the few weeks or months it took them to arrive on foot to this border. The amount of violence, desperation and poverty they had experienced was beyond anything I could imagine and yet I was anxious about them missing math, science and literature class?

Unfortunately, the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela crippled the school system years before I arrived at the border. This NY Times article from 2020 talks about the amount of malnourished children that faint in Venezuelan schools due to not eating breakfast or dinner the night before.

The high percentage of teachers fleeing the country have left many schools empty and abandoned. Children often don’t show up due to lack of money for uniforms, school supplies and food. The Guardian reported that "There are 723 pupils at the José Eduardo Sánchez Afanador school but no electricity, no computers, no tables and no chairs.

The windows lack glass, the toilets have lost their sinks and its metal classroom doors have been plundered by thieves, allowing pigeons to colonize several of the filthy spaces”. School provides much more than just facts and homework. School is (well, should be) a stable environment that allows students to flourish, yes in the traditional class work, but also in personal development. It is a place where they learn how to have healthy relationships, follow instruction, understand societal structures and where they fit in this world. They learn their gifts and talents and their challenges. Many times they learn to overcome these challenges; educational, emotional and mental and that sets them up to be successful contributors to society. In the classroom and among their peers they often find their passion, create goals and dream about their future. This is how access to education becomes a powerful tool to prevent sex trafficking.

A sex trafficker, especially one that preys on children, is looking to fill voids, personal situations to manipulate and desperate children to coerce. They take what little they have left and use specific tactics to make them victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Sadly, a sex traffickers job is easy when it comes to Venezuelan women and children. The voids are immense, the desperation crippling and the fight to survive is easy to manipulate. The crisis has taken their ability to learn, to grow, to dream and to live. And a sex trafficker takes their freedom.

Sex trafficking thrives in areas where there is lack of formal education. I learned a lot about education on that first trip to the border. I learned that it is a powerful tool to prevent and intervene in sex trafficking. I learned that providing access to education for these vulnerable women and children is also providing them with stability, identity, basic needs, protection, community and support. But more importantly it is giving them something no one can take away