By: Daniel Nardini

It is a scourge every bit as bad as the illicit drugs coming from the drug cartels. Because of the demand for sex, there are those who kidnap and force women to perform sex for clients whether in Mexico or in the United States. In one Mexican town called Tenancingo, there are those who have become rich over the sex slave trade. Sadly, this town has become the conduit for the trade where young women—most of whom come from towns and villages afflicted by poverty and lack of opportunities—come. Such young women are then kidnapped, beaten and raped, and then forced into a life of prostitution. The local police force that is supposed to protect them is usually in the pay of the traffickers, and so many tens of thousands of these women are trapped in a cycle of sex slavery and violence. If some of them are lucky they might escape and go to the Mexican federal authorities, but that is rare.

Many of these women are forcibly sent to the United States where they are carefully watched by the traffickers. Those women who try to escape are usually killed, and these women live in constant fear. The U.S. government and state authorities are well aware of the problem, and both conduct raids on suspected brothels as well as meet severe penalties on those traffickers caught. Those women who successfully escape are given full protection and given work visas to keep them in the United States so they can testify against their former traffickers. Even then the U.S. federal and state authorities find it extremely difficult to nail the sex slave traffickers. Many of the women are too afraid to escape or fear their families will be killed if they do.

The two major problems is fighting the demand for sex and fighting the poverty and violence so many of these women endure where they live. This is why so many women in many parts of Mexico try to find a way to escape. The danger here is that they are prime targets for the sex traffickers who lure them with promises of money and steady work. In this regards, Mexico is just one more link in the dirty and ugly business that is sex slave trafficking. And sadly, sex slave trafficking pretty much stems from the same root causes that have spawned the drug cartels—poverty, corruption, unworkable institutions, and the wide gap between rich and poor that has only made Mexican society more unstable. In order for the Mexican link in the sex slave trafficking system to be broken the people must fight against tho poverty, corruption and inequity inherent in Mexican society to help save the hundreds of thousands of women at present and in the future from becoming sex slaves.