Between January 2021 and June 2022, the Citizen Council for Security and Justice of Mexico City has received reports of seven of them through its National Line and Chat against Trafficking in Persons (LNCTP), 800 5533 000.
In the first place is the modality of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, with 55.5%; 20.4% corresponds to forced labor or services, 13.9% to labor exploitation, 3.6% to forced begging, 3.6% to the use of children under 18 in criminal activities, 1.5% to forced marriage and 1.5% to illegal adoption of children under 18 years.
The other four, of which there are no reports in the LNCTP, are servanthood, slavery, organ trafficking and illicit biomedical experimentation.
The victims of sexual exploitation are, fundamentally, underage women, between 11 and 17 years old who, as a result of the pandemic and the consequent increase in the use of the internet and social networks, are hooked through the digital world.
The traffickers contact them through some platform, they become friends and create a virtual relationship until they convince them to meet in person either to formalize their relationship or to offer them “a better life” far from their homes. Once hooked, they are forced to have paid sex with various people against their will.
On the other hand, people subjected to forced labor or services and labor exploitation are, in 53% of cases, under 17 years of age and, for the most part, men who are recruited mostly via Facebook with false job offers, attractive wages and working conditions… so attractive that they cannot be true.
