The Mexican Drug Cartels' Other Business: Human Trafficking Ioan Grillo - Time.com
go to original July 31, 2013

The Women of Juarez is a short documentary on the women behind the "job." Music by Mike Ator. (luis saenz)

MEXICO CITY - Like many victims of human trafficking, Marcela was tricked into the sex trade by a man she thought she could trust. She met him in her small home town in Veracruz state when she was 16. Posing as a wealthy businessman, he asked for her hand in marriage, promising a comfortable lifestyle. Instead he took her to the Merced neighborhood of Mexico City, a hotbed for prostitution. She was kept under duress in a hotel room and forced to have sex with up to 40 men a day, who paid $15 each to her so-called boyfriend and his accomplices

Girls suffering from human trafficking are often kept under such conditions for years. However, after a week, police raided the hotel and Marcela defied the threats from the traffickers to testify in court, sending them to prison. “When it was happening, I just blocked it out as it was so painful,” said Marcela, who asked her name be changed. “It took me a long time to regain any confidence in myself, to rebuild my life.”

Read the rest at Time.com

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