Inside a sex trafficking pipeline to New York City
ALISON BOWEN | NEW YORK
Published: September 30, 2012 6:15 p.m.
Last modified: September 30, 2012 6:25 p.m.http://www.metro.us/newyork/local/article/1153086--inside-a-sex-trafficking-pipeline-to-new-york-city
PHOTO: URBAN JUSTICE CENTER
A street corner in the region of Tlaxcala, where many women are trafficked to New York from in Mexico.For years, hundreds of women have traveled from San Miguel Tenancingo, a village in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, with their eyes toward New York, only to become embroiled in sex trafficking. The Urban Justice Center's Sex Workers Project released a report last week detailing dozens of nightmarish experiences.
Trafficking, which refers to any forced work through coercions like violence or fraud but often involves forced sex, usually begins with a hint of a job somewhere else, maybe a friend's restaurant.
In Tlaxcala, said Sex Workers Project co-director Sienna Baskin, traffickers court women that grew up nearby or pass through looking for better jobs, convincing them they can help.
"The destination was pretty much right away New York," Baskin said.
The 37 people, including two transgender women and one man, said once in the city, those promises evaporated and victims were instead, often violently, pressed into prostitution.
President Barack Obama just pushed last week at Manhattan's Clinton Global Initiative to end trafficking, which he called "modern slavery." He vowed to increase border-control officials' training and make it easier for victims to get visas to stay safely in the States.
The Urban Justice Center suggests that more resources should be allocated to connecting trafficking victims with their children, who are often kept by the trafficker as a way to control the victim, such as in the case of Marcella.
