Me

new ways to fight human trafficking. At the beginning of 2010, in collaboration with the financial corporation Doral, we launched a new community program to mobilize social consciousness. I am convinced that this is a problem we can solve. No matter how massive it is, no matter how rampant it may be in countries all over the world, I know we have been able to create more of a consciousness; and maybe if people see the dangers faced by the world’s children with their own eyes, we can make a difference.

NATURAL DISASTERS
    ONE OF THE things very few people know about human trafficking is that traffickers often take advantage of extreme situations, such as earthquakes, floods, or wars, to abduct the children who are most vulnerable. Some of the most intense experiences I’ve lived through since I began fighting human trafficking have been when I have visited places affected by natural disasters, such as the tsunami of 2004 and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. I will never in my life be able to erase those images from my mind, and the truth is that I don’t want to: I don’t want to forget about all the destruction, the pain, and the desolation I saw because I don’t want to forget that each day I must continue fighting for my cause.
    The tsunami unfurled at 9:33 a.m. on December 26, 2004, on the beaches of Patong, Thailand. According to witnesses, the first wave measured some thirty feet in height. It destroyed everything in its path. It overturned cars, crumbled buildings, knocked trees over, crushing the debris with its turbulent waters. The waves caused massive damage and thousands of deaths in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Somalia, and the Maldives. In its wake, it left a death toll of more than 287,000, and more than 50,000 missing people. A third of the dead were children.
    Even though the news traveled through all the media, I didn’t find out until several days later. I was on a private island in Puerto Rico celebrating my birthday with a group of friends. Even though the island had every form of communication, I wanted to remain disconnected, and a whole week went by without my looking at my cell phone once. I didn’t know what was going on in Puerto Rico, never mind on the other side of the world. I was just having a good time, swimming in the ocean, relaxing on the sand, singing and playing music.
    So it was not until January 3 or 4, when I returned to San Juan, that I found out about the tsunami. My first reaction was of complete anguish. I thought that if the tsunami had been in the Atlantic instead of on the other side of the world, I would have probably disappeared off the face of the earth, because I was on such a flat island that there was nowhere to run. I think that because I had just come back from so many days relaxing by the ocean, it hit me even harder to think that on the other side of the planet the ocean had actually turned into a monster.
    I was completely and utterly jolted. I watched the chaos on television, all the devastation, heard the reports of the thousands of dead and still missing, and the children who were lost and in search of their parents, who by this point could be God only knows where. And suddenly I realized this was a perfect scenario for traffickers: There were thousands of traumatized kids, orphans, lost and helpless, who were willing to take help from anyone who was willing to give it. Once this way of thinking crossed my mind, there was no way to erase it. I knew these children were at risk and I had to do something about it. And fast.
    I called the executive director of the foundation and I said to him, “We have to go to Thailand right away.”
    “Okay,” he said, “and what are we going to do there?”
    “I don’t know!” I replied. “I just know that we have to go and we have to make noise so that people will pay attention to what is happening.”
    I knew it was one of those moments when it would be critical to utilize my power of conviction. I was ready to stand on any rooftop of any building and scream out, “Heads up! Children might be trafficked right now. They might be getting abducted as we speak!”
    And that is more or less what we did. We invited a Puerto Rican writer who had traveled with us a lot. Every time we would go on a mission to Jordan or Calcutta, she would join us to document everything that happened on the trips. As we got ready to depart, we received a call from a producer of the Oprah Winfrey Show to ask if we were going