Henrick Vartanian
Actor and UN Goodwill Ambassador, Nicolas Cage, appealed to the international community Thursday, in Vienna, and urged the global community to fight organized crime, while reaching out to the victims of trafficking, reports AFP / Yahoo News). States came together this week for a meeting in Vienna to review the UN’s Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), placed into work in 2003, and evaluating its effectiveness so far.
“Children as well as adults, particularly women, are at risk of becoming its victims in every country on our planet,” stated the actor.
As a UNODC Goodwill Ambassador, Cage traveled last year to Uganda and Kenya and met with child soldiers. He has also set up funds providing shelters, in addition to medical and psychological care.
“There are many kinds of victims of organized crime, and… children are among the most vulnerable,” he noted.
Many victims were forced into prostitution, piracy or the army, while others became addicted to drugs or infected with HIV.
“If a young child is forced to become a soldier or a drug mule, or a prostitute, is that child a criminal or a victim?” asked Cage.
las Cage, who won an Oscar in 1996 for “Leaving Las Vegas,” was named Goodwill Ambassador for Global Justice for the UNODC last year.