William Acosta, CEO of Equalizer Investigations for FinGurú
The drama of child begging in Colombia is a painful social phenomenon that turns the cries and hopes of thousands of minors into merchandise for criminal profit. Every day, in peripheral neighborhoods and busy corners, children, especially Venezuelan migrants or displaced indigenous people, are captured or rented by organizations that use them as tools for fundraising on streets, in squares, and at terminals. Amid shadows of indifference and misdirected charity, their stories tell of uprooting, family breakups, violence, and, above all, the perverse ability of mafias to exploit any crack of social vulnerability. This exploitation, far from being casual, responds to the methodical action of networks that have professionalized the kidnapping of Colombian childhood.
Prevalence and Figures by Cities
In Colombia, institutions estimate that there are about 30,000 minors in street situations or begging, with critical hotspots in urban areas and migrant-receiving zones [Procuraduría General de la Nación, 2021]. In northern Bogotá, Usaquén, Chapinero, Fontibón, Suba, concentrates 37% of the detected cases, with more than 11,000 children reported alone in 2024. Barranquilla, after robust programs, managed to lower the child begging rate to 0.8% in 2024, meaning 3,000 fewer children on the street (Alcaldía de Barranquilla, 2025). Recent operations in Bogotá rescued over 50 minors accompanied by strangers, most of whom are migrants (Secretaría de Integración Social, Bogotá, 2025).
The Criminal Mechanism and Tariffs
The mafias that exploit minors operate with the efficiency and coldness of a market. They capture children, mostly Venezuelan migrants, through deception, threats, or economic agreements with families in desperate situations. The rental value fluctuates between 20,000 and 60,000 pesos daily or 3,000 to 20,000 pesos per hour, depending on the location and age of the minor (Infobae, 2022; BiobioChile, 2022). For many, the child's silence is ensured with medication. Thus, asleep in the arms of strangers, they are deployed at strategic points where civic compassion transforms into income for the network.
Sedation: The Invisible Violence that Anesthetizes Childhood
Among the cruelest methods employed by these mafias stands out the deliberate sedation of minors. Various testimonies and reports have demonstrated the use of psychiatric medications, sleeping syrups, antihistamines, or even illicit drugs, without medical prescriptions and often mixed in baby bottles or drinks, to keep children docile or asleep for long hours (Infobae, 2025; BiobioChile, 2022; RCN Radio, 2019). The tactic not only facilitates prolonged exploitation on the street and maximizes collection but also reduces the probability of social or police intervention. In contexts of sexual abuse, chemical submission through benzodiazepines and other sedatives seeks to limit resistance, induce amnesia, and make reporting difficult (Infobae, 2025).
The consequences for the physical and mental health of the children are devastating. Intoxications, damage to the nervous system, developmental disorders, loss of consciousness, and even death. This practice constitutes one of the most serious violations of the right to life, health, and childhood dignity in Colombia (Law 1098 of 2006).
Vulnerability of Venezuelan Migrant Childhood
The massive migration of Venezuelans has strengthened these mafias. Of the nearly two million migrants, one in four is a minor (ACOFI, 2022). They arrive in Colombia hungry, scared, and lacking social protection. Thus, they are an easy target for these criminal economies, condemning the children to a double marginalization; neither homeland nor childhood. Their limited access to health, education, and official documents makes them invisible and therefore enormously useful for trafficking and criminal exploitation (ACOFI, 2022; Procuraduría General de la Nación, 2021).
Between Begging and Abuse: Double Exploitation
The most atrocious aspect is how begging becomes the prelude to sexual exploitation. Mafias that first use minors to beg may, upon seeing their vulnerability or under greater demands from clients, transfer them to circuits of sexual abuse or offer them to pedophiles (ECPAT, 2021; US Embassy Colombia, 2023). The transition is fluid and almost natural in the logic of criminal rent. Children stop being just a sight of pity and become part of the secret catalogue of sexual exploitation, often transmitted live or taken to other departments or countries (EL PAÍS, 2024). Official data is alarming; between 2021 and 2023, more than 8,000 reports of child sexual exploitation were registered, especially in cities like Cartagena, Medellín, and Bogotá.
Profiles and Tactics of Criminal Networks
These networks operate with professionalism and opportunism. Their structure is often transnational, combining Colombians and migrants, with the sophistication of large cartels. They divide tasks: recruiters, women acting as community mothers, logistics who move children to strategic locations, and technological links who traffic sexual material on the web (Infobae, 2025; Semana, 2023; US Embassy Colombia, 2024). Their favorite tactic is exploiting misery. They convince or force vulnerable parents to lend their children, rotate minors among different adults, and use sedation as a habitual tool. Their window to the digital world allows them to capture victims, coordinate rentals, and meet demands from pedophiles, all covered by institutional indifference and well-meaning but misdirected charity.
Conclusion
The begging and exploitation of minors in Colombia constitutes not only a heinous crime but also a deep wound in the collective conscience and an ethical challenge for society as a whole. Behind every child asleep on a corner or every absent gaze at traffic lights, there is a sophisticated criminal network that has transformed childhood into merchandise, instrumentalizing poverty and migration to maintain an increasingly profitable and violent illegal business.
Forced sedation, the continuous transfer of minors between exploiters, and the progressive normalization of using childhood as a tool leave marks that transcend the physical. They harm generations, perpetuate the cycle of exclusion, and condemn thousands of infants to grow up without horizon or real protection.
Although in recent years the state has made progress in reducing child labor and in prosecuting networks in large cities, there are still enormous protection gaps on the margins, among migrants, displaced persons, and in sectors where institutions are weak and spontaneous charity unintentionally becomes breeding ground for crime.
The data from 2025 reflect the sophistication of criminal mechanisms, the expansion of exploitation through digital technologies, and the urgency of a comprehensive response. Strict laws, targeted operations, community prevention, psychosocial care, and especially an empathetic, active, and constant civic vigilance.
Eradicating this form of crime implies recognizing shared responsibility. Social condemnation and punitive intervention are not enough. Only a real articulation between the state, the private sector, NGOs, the media, and civil society will offer alternatives to families and restore children's undeniable right to a dignified life free from exploitation. Turning a blind eye to these minors and not acting is to consent to dispossession.
Every child freed, protected, and restored is a victory, small but essential, in the reconstruction of the just and humane country that Colombia must aspire to.
Recommendations
Apply the law with justice and courage:
Victims deserve more than promises. It is essential for local and national authorities to face the mafias without fear. The law is not negotiable and should not be postponed for private interests or institutional complicity. Every dismantled criminal network is an opportunity to return to children what they should never have lost: peace and hope.
Rescue, Protect and Accompany Minors:
It is not enough to take children off the street. They need medical and psychological care, food, shelter, education, and above all, time and respect to heal. The state must guarantee short routes for the restitution of rights that do not get diluted in endless procedures or exist only on paper.
Investigate, Expose and Dismantle the Criminal Business:
Networks that rent and sell children do not survive without accomplices or silence. It is urgent to strengthen digital and financial investigation to track money, identify patterns, and destroy the scaffolding that allows profiting from childhood. Let no one feel they can extinguish a child's suffering with impunity.
Educate and Mobilize Citizens:
Every adult must understand that street charity does not save. On the contrary, it can fuel the crime chain. The community must be the first resort for reporting, protection, and affection. Creative campaigns, active schools, and public spaces must teach to reject exploitation and protect vulnerable childhood.
Join Hands and Open Horizons for Vulnerable Families:
There is no stable solution without real alternatives for those caught in the cycle of poverty and migration. NGOs, businesses, and neighbors can weave networks that offer opportunities, training, and concrete help. A just society is one that does not accept the daily shame of seeing children exploited without intervening.
Listen to Children and Let Them Dream:
Every public policy must create spaces where children are truly heard, not just seen as figures or victims. May the voices of childhood transform the future and the present, claiming a country where no child has to sleep in the arms of a sedated stranger, nor feel that the world is foreign to them.
These recommendations arise from pain and hope, from a deep desire to transform indignation into action and to return to Colombian childhood the concrete possibility of growing, playing, and dreaming in a safe and dignified environment.
About the Author:
William L. Acosta graduated from PWU and Alliance University. He is a retired police officer from the New York Police Department and founder and CEO of Equalizer Private Investigations & Security Services Inc., a licensed agency in New York and Florida, with international outreach.
Since 1999, he has led investigations into narcotics cases, homicides, and missing persons, as well as participated in criminal defense both at the state and federal levels. A specialist in international and multijurisdictional cases, he has coordinated operations in North America, Europe, and Latin America.
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