Bienestar familiar (the agency you mentioned) has had an office in the alleyway leading from Parque Berrio to church for many years. Also, the police's women and children special brigade regularly set up intervention tents and work out of their vans in the middle of the plaza. How effective they have been I will leave up to the experts. When the barriers were initially put up I posted here that the one advantage was the reduction in vendors with loudspeakers and the most annoying of the panhandler / thieves. I also complained that those benefits did not begin to outweigh the disadvantage for my main reason for being in the plaza. Your point about limited access for the less privileged is very well taken. Not long before his death, Botero himself cited this as the reason he disagreed with the barrier. All that aside, I stand by my assessment that the real reason for the barriers in Centro and Poblado was political. The Mayor, who had been recalled and who later resigned in disgrace, did it as a political stunt to revive his moribund election campaign. Good riddance to the barrier and to the clownish Daniel Quintero. I am Knowledge and I approve of this message.
[QUOTE=Zeos1;2883468]There were a number of reasons for the barriers, and it was not to get rid of mongering, but to keep it and the vendors, etc etc out of the immediate area of the museum. The area behind the museum and the behind the little white church is zoned as a red light area (zona de tolerencia) but I don't think that extends out into the plaza Botero. Anyway, it seems like it is an unpopular effort and especially the part where it is seen as keeping the less privileged people away from the public displays of Botero art, the sculptures, etc.
The barriers changing the traffic flow into Parque Lleras were set up specifically over concerns about underage prostitution, and there initially was some presence of agencies that try to combat that, for example they had staff at the area around the entrance to try to talk to and protect children that were hanging out around there. Again, whether this has helped to deal with that who knows. And it may have also been to try to slow down the prostitution in general in that area, as the city was seeing it as a negative for general tourism and for the image of the city. They certainly do not like being seen as a sex tourism destination.[/QUOTE]