A woman walks past photographs of disappeared women and victims of femicide, in Mexico.Margarito Pérez (CUARTOSCURO)
The authorities have found 11 women who had been held in a hotel for more than three months, forced to perform sex work and all kinds of tasks, according to the Hidalgo Secretary of Public Security.
The first investigations suggest that the young women, 10 Colombians and one Spanish, were tricked into coming to work in Mexico.
They were then locked up and forced to work at the hotel.
The victims reported that the owner stole their pay and physically assaulted them.
The United Nations Organization registered an increase, between 2020 and 2021, of 30% in the number of people who were convicted of the crime of human trafficking in Mexico, where the majority of the victims are, like them, foreigners and women. .
The first clues reached the police through an anonymous report.
It warned about two women who were suffering physical attacks by a man who worked at the hotel.
In addition, they reported that the man kept them locked in one of the rooms.
Police officers went to the location and spoke with the assailant, whom they identified as the manager.
After carrying out a more thorough search, the uniformed officers found the 11 women.
There were two detainees, identified with the initials BMD and CETB, aged 26 and 30, and the young women were transferred to the Attorney General's Office to carry out the corresponding investigations.
Like these 11 women, the majority of trafficking victims in Mexico are migrants and women.
"Most of the victims identified in the region share vulnerabilities such as poverty, low or no schooling, lack of job opportunities, exclusion and marginalization," explains a report presented to the Senate of the Republic and carried out by Hispanics in Philanthropy, a kind of
think
tank
. tank
on human rights in Latin America.
Although regional differences are important.
The north of the country has a high degree of migrants who fail in their attempt to cross into the United States.
This makes it a focus for international human trafficking.
The most touristy areas use these migrants for sexual exploitation purposes, while inland areas tend to be more focused on forced labor, according to the report.
The United Nations Organization registered 128 cases of people convicted of the crime of human trafficking in Mexico, while sex trafficking had an increase of 30% between 2020 and 2021, and 67% in the number of victims of human trafficking. people.
The Ministry of the Interior registered 1,316 victims of trafficking in 2020, much less than what it registered in 2021: 2,202 victims of trafficking.
The figures do not stop increasing in a spiral of violence that is difficult to stop.
The Secretary of Public Security arrested two people for their alleged relationship with the crime of human trafficking in Hidalgo. SSP Hidalgo
One of the most alarming figures is the number of victims who escape the scheme of exploitation to which they are subjected on their own feet, because they finally have the initiative or the opportunity to notify the authorities, who often seem blind to this problem.
41% of victims are saved from trafficking without the help of the authorities, says the UN report.
Only 28% were rescued by the authorities, and the remaining 11% were rescued by the community.
The problem of trafficking goes beyond sexual exploitation.
As can be done in the Bajio region of Mexico, exploitation is also focused on the purely labor sphere.
The report of the Senate of the Republic detected that in the region of San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, Nayarit and Jalisco, the victims are usually employed in jobs in the agricultural fields or in the felling of trees in Querétaro.
In the central region, which includes the State of Mexico, Guerrero, Veracruz and Jalisco, the victims also end up doing forced labor, especially in construction and textile work.
The poverty and marginalization of the south of the country condemns its population to fall into the clutches of organized crime and forced labor.
The conclusion of the Senate report is devastating: “The scant efforts in the States were evident, both in the protection of victims and in the prosecution of crime and preventive actions.
In addition to this, existing actions often lack a gender perspective, which does not allow for an adequate approach and attention to human trafficking”.
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