Brenda wondered who would be next victim after a series of murders migrants recruited by a sexual exploitation network in Mexico. Their testimony and that of other women are part of a documentary that will premiere in Netflix this week.
She is one of the hundreds of women who have arrived in Mexico in recent years, especially since South Americaattracted by false job offers as models and without residence papers.
But once in this country they ended up enslaved by a gang that confiscated their passports and offered their services as “escorts” or companions in Mexico City, through the website Zone Two, According to the testimonies collected for the documentary series The Portal.
The drama of these women is I will aggravate after four Venezuelan women and one Argentine woman who appeared on the platform were murdered between February 2017 and the same month in 2018.
His tragedy, as well as that of his families and companions is captured in the four-episode series that the platform will premiere globally on Thursday.
“We want them to look at the stories of these women, what led them to this. They all come from extremely precarious environments and emigrated to Mexico in search of a better future“, said Laura Woldenberg.
The executive producer clarified that the series is not looking for culprits, but rather to prevent the abuse from happening again and to generate reflection among users of this type of service.
Fleeing poverty and violence, hundreds of thousands of migrants cross Mexico every year to cross into USA. Many remain temporarily in Mexican territory, raising funds to cover the cost of the trip, including paying “coyotes” (traffickers).
DOUBLY VULNERABLE
The production’s directors, Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez, traveled to Argentina, Venezuela and the United States to interview women who escaped the network, as well as relatives of the murdered girls.
“Being a minority, nobody cares. As “They were like, ‘Oh, another girl died!’” Brenda laments in the documentary..
The victims of this gang were mostly South Americans in an irregular situation, who lived practically as hostages.
“What made them doubly vulnerable as migrants was also the fact that they were sexually active. And of course, there was the distrust of the Mexican authorities,” she says. Rondero.
“After a lot of effort, they managed to take ownership of their bodies and their own work to say ‘I want to continue as a sex worker or I want to leave’. Both scenarios are possible,” Valadez notes.
According to local media, around twenty people have been investigated or arrested for their relationship with Zone Two, which was active between 2001 and 2018.
Ignacio Santoyo Cervantes, nicknamed “El Sony,” was arrested in 2007 on charges of pimping and dealing in illicit funds.
But he was released due to lack of evidence and, according to the press and civil organizations, he is believed to be in Cuba.
According to these same versions, the network would be linked to criminal groups that control drug trafficking in Mexico City.
According to the most recent report of the HIM Regarding human trafficking, in 2019, nearly 1 in every 100,000 people in the world were victims of this crime and more than half of them were victims of sexual exploitation, although the trend decreased with the pandemic.
In North America, according to this document released in 2023, 64% of sex trafficking victims are women and 27% are girls.
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2024-09-05 15:59:26