Ricky Martin has done an extraordinary amount of charity work in his attempts to bring attention to child trafficking. While a lot of celebs sign on to champion a cause and never do much more than attend a few fancy dinners, a select few remain devotedly committed to their cause – and Martin is definitely one of them. On Saturday he went to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where he met with young victims of human trafficking that were used for sexual exploitation. The stories shared are truly heartbreaking, and highlight how incredibly important this cause really is.
Martin held infants and listened to a 14-year-old rape victim’s song during his visit to a shelter in the northwestern city of Siem Reap, home of the famed Angkor temples. “She sings like an angel,” Martin said after the girl finished a song she composed about the plight of trafficking victims. The girl was among 65 victims sheltered at the rescue center of Afesip, a French non-governmental group working to combat human trafficking in Cambodia.
The pop star also held the 3-month-old daughter of a 22-year-old woman who was sold by her father to a brothel and is now HIV-positive. The woman broke down in tears as she urged Martin to keep fighting against human trafficking. “I’m not going to stop,” Martin said, pounding his fist on his knee as he sat on a tiled floor. “All of you are my heroes. You are a gift of my life.”
Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday, met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation.
[From Yahoo! News]
Ricky Martin first learned about the horrors of child human trafficking in February when he attended a U.N. conference about it. Since then he has actively campaigned to bring attention to the cause in Latin America. He said that Cambodia is a model for change, as they already have over 200 NGOs devoted to ridding the country of the crime. Martin said he plans to take the information he learned in Cambodia home and use it to “motivate people, organizations, governments in Latin America.” Cambodia and Thailand are still the worst havens for child human trafficking in the world, but Martin is right, they’ve made some important inroads. He’s had a ton of publicity in Latin America for his attention to this cause, and hopefully will stick with it and help bring on much-needed change.
Here’s Ricky Martin at the 8th Annual Latin Grammy Awards on November 8th. Images thanks to PR Photos.
Good for him! But im pretty certain that the comments will be about his sexuality instead of his humanitarian work.Have fun kiddos!
Who really cares about his sexuality…he’s hot either way.
He is a great humanitarian who uses his celebrity to bring light to the injustice done to the disadvantaged. I support him heart and dollar every opportunity I get.
Fair play to him; I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that trafficking has gotten to the stage of being a global pandemic and I wish anyone who wants to stop it well.
stories like this warm the cockles of my cynical heart. bless him and his endeavors.
Go Ricky! And never stop! This is so good to hear. I wish him great success and pray he continues with this extremely important work. One person can make a difference! His name is Ricky.
Man Ricky that is one ill fitting suit your wearing…leave the vest unbuttoned or just go with out it when your busting out,,,you lil bitch. now on to the subject at hand..all the visiting and calling attention to and listening to orphans sing in the world will not change a thing. All these attention whore actors do this but not a one has any kind of game plan. Is your celebrity that strong that your image alone will make a repressive regime crack down on the horrors happening in their borders? Angelina visits every corner of the earth,,,what is her game plan? what has changed since she started her tour? are you gonna rely on the UN to take care of it? that corrupt organization? or do you plan on th US to do something? Not unless they discover oil there,,,not after wastin 59000 american lives over there already. This is all very nice and dandy but it won’t change a damn thing. Yeah I’m a cinic,,,but what is happening now that is new to the face of man? Anyone hear of sodom and gomoruh (def. sp). Man has been battling evil for ever….if he makes any kind of difference I stand ready to applaud and eat my crow,,,that is all thank you.
you’re absolutely right Kevin, these celeb and non celeb philanthropists should just leave everything well alone!
NOT
game plan or no they’re doing something no matter how small, if human rights violations and injustices the world over were ignored by all I can’t see that that would be a better scenario…
what have you done lately?…
No Jess the better question is what have you done lately,,,I’m not the one championing his efforts. If a celebrity wanted to impress me they would sell everything they have and not rest a second until the injustice was solved…not spend a weekend there on their way off to a l of their 4 homes. Hell all those kids know where and how their captors operate…they have a vested interest…bring in Maddox to organize them. This is happening in his native country. But believe you me,,,the vietnamese know how to fight and no country or organization is gonna go in there and do anything. Heck the UN is still in Bosnia how many years later? Sorry if reality spoils your feel good story for sunday. Unfortunatley time will prove me right. Its not that I dont feel bad for these kids,,,but really…I mean really what are you going to do. Without any kind of plan? Pissing into a hurricane my friend.
Celebs and philanthropists should leave well enough alone eh? They have the money, time and, nay, the obligation to use their status for something other than pissing around Kitson drinking Starbucks caffinated slop. If that’s the life you emulate fair enough, but please don’t condemn the rest of us to it.
And Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. You’re mixing not metaphors but causes here. The issue Martin is raising is a trafficking problem. Iraq is another issue with other underlying causes – and as for the Balkans, of course the UN isn’t going to “fix” something that’s been raging for centuries in 15 short years. But I would point to one relative success, through international (but not UN) involvement was Northern Ireland. It’s not perfect, it’s still sectarian and the provos still want to act as a proxy police, but it is immesureably better since the Good Friday Agreement 10 years ago as there was a concerted effort to sustain the progress especially at grass roots level. If there is enough popular support for a positive change, then it can happen. Why not allow celebs do something positive and promote good change?
Yes we’re all aware that it is an innate and ugly part of human nature to exploit others if it brings us benefits. But doing nothing whatsoever is compounding greater evils.
Let me give you one of my anaolgies – say a loved one was attacked in the street by a gang and beaten to a bloody pulp. A group of bystanders stood around and did nothing. I don’t mean not stepping in to stop the attack because they didn’t want to get hurt, i mean nothing as in not alerting the ambulance or police that this was happening and a person was being injured. Say for example the pounding was so severe that brain damage or death would have been a likely outcome if the ambulance didn’t arrive for hours or indeed days? The beating would be evil, but simply ignoring and going “Meh, what can you do?”would be compounding that evil for an even worse outcome.
^^ Hear! Hear!
I love Ricky. I am still hoping he is not gay but most likely he is. He does great charity work. I am glad he does not ask for sainthood and does not use it for publicity like some celebrities do.
Ricky Martin knows how to make a good way to let all his fans support his endeavors and activities. That’s why people loved him so much. I sure do hope that he can also leverage his helping by a website charity for online donations or something like that. Sample of which is http://www.gift2help.com and hopefully he can hep this one out to. Not just the human trafficking.