The threat of human trafficking is acute in Guatemala, caused by a wide range of issues that are tied to intense poverty and a lack of opportunity. Passion's project will help combat this by constructing and equipping a community center in the 35,000 person village of Chivoc. Through this multi-use center Passion will provide skill-building and educational services in order to keep at-risk women and children from becoming victims of trafficking.
In Guatemala alone there are nearly 50,000 victims of human trafficking for sex - almost 60% are children & 64% are women and girls. The country's deadly combination of high rates of poverty, gang activity, and migration, along with little opportunity for education and employment, fuels this huge problem. The Passion community center is an intersectional approach to combating trafficking that gives women and children the critical tools to escape cycles of poverty and trafficking vulnerability.
Passion understands what the United Nations has itself identified: lack of education and high levels of poverty are linked to human trafficking. This community center is a multi-purpose project that addresses the root issues that lead a child, woman, or any person to be a potential trafficking victim. This center will serve the community with practical classes, a technology center, employment coaching, and more to create a more stable future for the residents.
To stop human trafficking means addressing the root causes of extreme poverty. The skills and education received at Passion's center will help prevent dangerous cycles of lack of education and skills, minimal job access, malnutrition, and other factors that lead to systemic vulnerability in these poor communities. By serving as a focal point for understanding and addressing the complexity of poverty, Passion can tackle those deep issues that lead a person to be at risk of human trafficking.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
