In Mexico, similar to the United States, traffickers prey on men and children by playing on their insecurities, and luring them with feelings of affection. Those that are lured and then trapped into the trafficking business are some smuggled across the US-Mexico border where they work as prostitutes, but others remain in Mexico in places like Mexico City. Cartels that have been targeted by both the United States and Mexican governments have begun to integrate themselves with sex trafficking.
6.6 billion United States Dollars have been contributed to human trafficking in one year alone in Mexico. This major problem that is plaguing Mexico is not receiving near as much attention as the drugs. The affects that drugs and its related violence have caused have taken precedent in the media over the concerns of human trafficking.
Major drug cartels, such as Los Zetas, have appeared as major components in Mexico’s human trafficking problem. These cartels are taking advantage of unsecure borders on the southern edge of the country, making many central American immigrants very vulnerable to becoming part of trafficking rings. As these immigrants make their way across Mexico with the hopes of making it into the United States they are often forced into exploitation.
Karla’s story shows how traffickers coerce victims to trust them by at first showing compassion and love that these victims did not experience earlier in life. Karla’s horror story takes place mostly in Mexico City, but there is another city that both Mexican and United States governments have recognized as a breeding ground for traffickers. This small Mexican city is Tenancingo. Little boys that live here have dreams of becoming a sex trafficker, just as they have seen their fathers and grandfathers do before them. Families in this city have made a great deal of money off of the international sex trafficking business. In recent years these traffickers have begun to immigrate to New York where they continue their business in the United States. These traffickers have also begun selling and transporting their victims to be sex slaves in New York
Human Trafficking North America 