Lingerie keeping cocaine at bay

First grew coffee. When prices for the bean collapsed, many turned to growing illegal drug crops.

And hundreds of rural Colombians, hoping for a better living, are trying their hand at making racy lingerie for a French retail chain under a new UN-backed program.

The wispy G-strings, revealing bras and lacy garter-belts went on sale Saturday at Carrefour's 11 outlets around Colombia. The undergarments will be sold at its overseas stores in coming months.

"We are opening up a universe of new possibilities for Colombia's rural communities," said Gabriel Silva, head of the Colombian Federation of Coffee Growers, which along with the French Embassy, the UN drug office and Carrefour is promoting the alternative development project.

The project was conceived when farmers in the coffee-growing region began cultivating illicit drug crops, which swelled the ranks of Colombia's leftist rebel and right-wing paramilitary groups that control the trade.

Colombia 70 percent of the world's cocaine and most of the heroine sold in the US.

Alarmed a sharp rise in poverty and crime in Colombia's coffee-rich Valle del Cauca region in the past few years, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime tried to find jobs and markets for the poor farmers.

"We searched for projects that we believed could reduce illicit activities," said Thierry Rostan, the UNODC representative in Colombia who led the effort. "What people needed were jobs and places to sell their products."

After touring Valle del Cauca, Rostan identified a local cooperative, Integrated Industries, that trained poor families in new skills. But with little access to markets, the cooperative was struggling to find enough work for its employees, and needed a major company like Carrefour to broaden its reach.

Carrefour's label, Symphony, hooked up with the cooperative, which has 12 production centers scattered across the province. The centers have good access to roads, overcoming a problem that has bedeviled other development projects.

In the past, efforts to promote coca alternatives, notably fruits and vegetables, in remote areas of the country have often foundered due to a lack of infrastructure.

About women, many of them heads of families, are making the lingerie. They take home about 800,000 Colombian pesos (about US$280) a month, about double the minimum wage and far more than what they could make growing coffee. They also enjoy health benefits and paid vacation.

Coca in comparison, make about 200,000 Colombian pesos (about US$70), but they need to pay taxes to illegal armed groups.

This year alone, Carrefour has spent about 180 million pesos (about US$63,500) in the lingerie project. It is projected to spend another 300 million pesos (US$106,000) next year.

On Wednesday, top models paraded the products to disco beats and flashing lights along a catwalk in Bogota's French Lycee in front of business executives, politicians, lawmakers and French Ambassador Daniel Parfait.

"Violence and unemployment have brought misery to rural Colombia," Edilma Arango, of Integrated Industries, told the gathered dignitaries Wednesday. "You are bringing hope."