2024-02-14 07:28:26
“Rape, sexual abuse, kidnapping and trafficking” is what thousands of migrants are exposed to as they pass through the border between Guatemala and Chiapas, southern Mexico, he tells 14 intervene the lawyer José Luis Pérez. Along the way, some women are “kidnapped by drug cartels and forced into prostitution,” he adds.
Chiapas is ranked eighth in the crime of trafficking in Mexico. In 2020, 681 victims were registered in the state, the following year it rose to 753 and “in 2022 there were 936 cases,” recalls the lawyer. While in “the first half of 2023 there were 488 people affected by this crime,” he says.
The lawyer emphasizes that the “desperation due to the lack of money”, the delay of up to six months in the immigration processes “which many times” has a negative result, has also led Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians and Haitians, in their majority, to offer “sexual services” in bars, canteens, clubs and nightclubs.
Genly, a Honduran migrant who is in Tapachula (Chiapas), worked in one of these bars that was closed on January 11 because it operated clandestinely. This 20-year-old migrant completed the process in December of last year before the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) and they gave her an appointment for next March 27, so she was not handed over to the Immigration agents.
“This cartel hooked many of the foreigners at the ADO bus terminal, which is a few meters away, with the promise of giving them work and helping them reach the border with the United States.”
This was not the case for Yalim, 29, and Anadelys, 42, “two Cuban women who were waiting for their appointment through CBP One, but because they were illegal they were taken to the Siglo XXI immigration station,” located in Tapachula. Genly affirms that during the time he was working at the site, some armed men arrived in trucks and took away some of the women, especially young Venezuelan and Colombian women. “They gave them money, cell phones and clothes and told them that they could process their documents.”
On January 14, 25 women – including Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians and Mexicans – who were forced into prostitution were rescued in the state of Quintana Roo. According to investigations, the Vaider bar, located at number 500 Isla de Capri Street in the municipality of Othón P. Blanco, in Chetumal, was controlled by the Caborca cartel.
“This cartel hooked many of the foreigners at the ADO bus terminal, which is a few meters away, with the promise of giving them work and helping them reach the border with the United States,” officer Alfredo Poot García told this newspaper.
The organization Caminantas, which serves migrants passing through Mexico, reported last Saturday an increase in cases of trafficking of Colombian, Cuban and Venezuelan women. The victims, activist Laura Cortés told the EFE agency, are hooked through the same mode of operation: an acquaintance online “who supports them financially from a distance, buys them tickets for the trip and sends them money for their family.” Once in Mexico they are violated.
Activist María Ángel Vielma stated that many women also come to this country with the promise of a job and other false commitments. “The abuser sees what his need is to manipulate, it is the hook disguised as love,” she said.
“There is selective xenophobia, we say, because if you are Central American the treatment and pejorative comments are very ugly”
Vielma explained that these cases are common among women who come from countries with economic crises or with nationalities about which there are stereotypes of female beauty. “There is selective xenophobia, we say, because if you are Central American the treatment and pejorative comments are very ugly. On the other hand, if you are Colombian, Cuban or Venezuelan you are the sexy girl, the bomb, what they see on television that they believe is She is a woman from these countries,” she stressed.
This could explain why of the 227 foreigners murdered in Mexico from 2015 to 2023, 32 were Colombian and 29 Venezuelan, according to the National Public Security System (SNSP).
According to figures from the National Migration Institute, between 2018 and 2023, there were 160 registered victims of trafficking, of which 89 women and 35 men were victims of sexual exploitation.
The Migration numbers on trafficking are “misleading,” says lawyer José Luis Pérez. “They count the cases that are reported, but there are many more victims who do not report out of fear.”
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