The problem with looking at the underbelly of society, is once you start to look, you can't stop. What you're bound to see will make you weep.

Yesterday, we had an intensive interview with a Margarita, a sex worker from Colombia who works for Lucia. Margarita perched on the edge of the company bed in her professional work quarters for the interview. The 5' x 7' room felt like water-free aquarium with the green walls and aqua sheets. In the space, I felt the claustrophobia a fish snatched from the ocean and dumped into confining glass walls would feel.

Unlike many sex workers who sleep in the same beds as they work, Margarita lives with her grandmother in Esmeralda. She agreed to let us film in her apartment the following morning, on the condition that we not mention her work. We made arrangements to meet the following morning in front of the Gran Mision Esmeraldas al Encuentro de Cristo -- a church overlooking the central square.

We slept, then awoke. Stalin picked us up and drove us to the meeting point.

Outside the church young boys and girls huddle, giggling and joking. Dominique gets out to scour the area for Margarita. I sit in the car guarding my camera and watching the crowds.

On a bench across the street from the church, a middle aged man in a day-glo green tank top and white shorts catches my attention. Seated on his lap is a young girl, probably eleven or twelve years old. Next to him sits another girl, a little older, who stares at the sidewalk, not getting nearly as much attention as the other. Both are wearing jeans, pink tank tops; their is hair is pulled back in tight cornrows. Given the man's age, my initial assumption is that this father is dropping his daughters off for the church's Saturday activities.

Dominique still isn't back. I continue to watch this trio. The girls bear no resemblance to the man. The way he looks at them is not at all paternal. I am disgusted, sickened. These girls are too young. I resist the urge to call him out on his predatory behavior. Dominique returns. Margarita is nowhere to be found. We drive around the block two more times before concluding Margarita changed her mind.
-- Amy Brown