Trade in Truths

interior of Quito airport looking out at city

Last night I flew from Cali to Quito via Bogota. Before transfering planes in Bogota, I paused to watch the television screens broadcasting coverage of Obama´s inauguration. I got teary, both filled with pride for my country, but also sad that I´m am miles away DC and the festivities. My fellow passengers smiled at me and it reminded me that for now, we have regained the respect of the world.

We dip below the thick cloud covering to land in Quito. An urban sprawl of lights emerged like I have never seen. The city of Quito is situated in a long narrow bowl, sandwiched between two mountain peaks. A dense grid of cubes creep up the mountain sides and down into valleys. The low lying lights seem to extend for miles and miles.

My reporting partner greets me at the airport and we drive to a lovely home in the valley of Cumbaya which will be our home base. Today, we fly west to the costal town of Esmeraldas where oil is the predominent business. We will begin talking to women refugees from Colombia who have fled poverty and violence and have ended up here as sex workers.

Leaving New York in the middle of a snowstorm only to land in hot and humid Panama a few minutes later strikes the body as nothing short of a small miracle were we not in the era of globalization. In Panama City, I had a five hour layover shared with my friend Carlos, his fiancee Mari and their new puppy, Rocco, a chocolate brown lab with forlorn blue eyes. We caught up in Casco Viejo over fabulous sunset vistas.

Then back to the airport for my flight to Quito. The city is larger and higher than you would expect. It reminds me of an inverted Santiago: a metropolitan sprawl surrounded by the Andes. Except Quito is in the Andes. Unlike Santiago, the suburbs here spill downards into the valleys instead of inching up the final fringes of the second largest mountain chain in the world.

Amy Brown is an independent video journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. She is a graduate from Columbia University's school of journalism. Previous projects include Rwanda Reporting, a documentary about the first generation of journalists since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. She has worked as a producer for PBS and cable networks in the United States. In January, she will travel to Colombia to report on social enterprise in Cali. On Jan. 20 she is joining Soguel in Quito to execute Proyecto Frontera. We are very excited for our first print and video collaboration.

Dominique Soguel is a journalist and photographer working at  Women's eNews in New York. She covers international policy, religion and gender issues. Soguel has filed stories from the US, the Middle East and  Africa. As a citizen of Chile, she looks forward to this opportunity to report from the South American continent. Soguel graduated from New York University with a joint masters degree in journalism and Near Eastern Studies. Previously, she studied political science at UPENN and Sciences Po, Paris. Prior to Women's eNews, she conducted translations and reporting for WNYC, The New York Times, WQXR and Voice of America.

In Colombia and Ecuador, one question on people’s mind is whether President Barack Obama will continue Plan Colombia, a U.S. foreign policy initiative kicked-off under the Clinton administration that calls for U.S. aid to focus on the elimination of the production of cocaine's raw material in Colombia. To date, he says he will end it.

This reporting project will focus on an often overlooked and unintended consequence of Plan Colombia: sex work – both voluntary and involuntary – in the border regions between Colombia and Ecuador. While the plan’s stated goal is the eradication of drug production and related paramilitary groups in Colombia, the undercovered story is how the strategy has resulted in the destruction of kinships and a dramatic escalation in the use of women for paid sex with the accompanying violence. A virgin now sells for $50.

Our team will examine Plan Colombia’s impact on women living and working in Sucumbios, a frontier province in North Ecuador, where oil extraction, drug and sex trafficking have turned women’s bodies into part of the battlefield. Prostitution is legal in Ecuador but lacks regulation and safety nets against sexual violence. In this landscape of toxic demand, Colombian displaced women have the least choice, being roped into sex and drug trafficking to eke a living. Many were victims of forced displacement.

Amy Brown will produce a five minute documentary. Dominique Soguel will produce three 1200-word features, blog and photo essay for Women’s eNews. Our content will include interviews with sex workers, Ecuadorian and Colombian, NGOs working with victims of human trafficking and sexual violence, and experts on Plan Colombia’s regional impact that can connect the situation to policy recommendations for President Obama’s new administration.