After the disappearance of her daughter, Marita, Susana began her career as an investigator, uncovering a chilling criminal network of human trafficking. In her fight, she has uncovered trafficking networks in Argentina that operate in the La Rioja, Tucumán, Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Santa Cruz provinces.
In the search for her daughter, she has managed to free more than a hundred victims, including 17 Argentine women who were forced into prostitution in Bilbao, Burgos and Vigo, Spain. She helped many of the women that were rescued by offering them shelter and helping them reconnect with their families. On Oct. 19, 2007, she founded the Fundación María de los Ángeles, through which she continues to receive crime tips and helps human trafficking victims with a team of professionals. Thanks to her work, human trafficking is gaining attention from the public as well as different public organizations in Argentina. In July 2008, she and the Fundación María de los Ángeles opened the first refuge created specifically for human trafficking victims. Many aid protocols in Buenos Aires and in Córdoba have been copied from this project.
FUNDACIÓN MARÍA DE LOS ÁNGELES
Susana Trimarco, since the kidnapping and disappearance of her daughter on April 3, 2002, has continued on a desperate search, and in that search, has uncovered human trafficking crimes. On Oct. 19, 2007, she created the Fundación to offer comprehensive assistance to victims, receive crime tips and offer defense of and counseling for the families. Many aid protocols in Buenos Aires and in Córdoba have been copied from this project.
We understand comprehensive assistance to mean offering free legal, psychological and social support for victims of human trafficking (applying law 26.364); prevention; offering, through therapy, the possibility of confronting the traumatic situations experienced by victims in order to help them to define a new life plan; and achieving a social refuge that detects their needs and manages what’s necessary in order to cover these needs.
Another main focus of this institution is training and education about human trafficking, oriented towards judges, prosecutors, police, and society in general, which allows them to reinforce the tools that we have to combat this crime and to sensitize it so that everyone deeply understands its implications.
The vision of the Fundación María de los Ángeles is to help eradicate human trafficking in Argentina, assisting victims in each of the country’s provinces, and working in an articulated and sustained way with the State.
Congratulations!
Elissa and Bruce Peterson, Founding Members