MEXICO:
Prostitution Rings
Flourish at all Levels
By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY (IPS)
- "Diamond VIP" class
prostitutes, who are
mainly from Eastern
Europe, Argentina,
Brazil or Cuba, can
charge as much as 2,000
dollars in Mexico, while
sex workers from
southern Mexico,
Guatemala, El Salvador
or Honduras earn a mere
15 dollars. The price
indicates which mafia is
handling the women.
The high-class
prostitutes are
"administered" by
Russians, Ukrainians or
Cuban-Americans linked
to global human
trafficking rings, while
the lower-priced are
controlled by local
pimps. Both
organisations operate in
a network of corruption
in which authorities are
involved.
A large proportion of
the women in the VIP
(very important person)
class, which is
subdivided into
platinum, gold and
diamond, come to Mexico
after being drawn in by
prostitution rings that
promise them work as
models or aides. The
others form part of the
waves of migration from
Central America and the
south of Mexico to the
country’s main cities.
In both cases, the women
are kept in small groups
whose leaders answer to
the mafias. Their
documents are seized,
they are not allowed to
make phone calls, and
they live in houses
where they are watched
constantly and are
sometimes locked up.
"The mafias are very
tough organisations, and
they only work because
of the collusion between
the authorities and
groups that have no
compunction about
killing," Jaime Montejo,
founder of Brigada
Callejera, a
non-governmental
organisation that has
been working with sex
workers in Mexico since
1995, told IPS.
"This is slavery, which
sometimes ends up with
the sex worker being
murdered if she rebels
or tries to make a
public complaint,"
Montejo said.
In La Merced, a
neighbourhood in the
historic centre of the
Mexican capital, where
dozens of prostitutes
from southern Mexico and
Central American
countries work, 14 women
were murdered in 2007,
and six have been killed
so far this year.
Nearly all the murders
go unpunished, but
Montejo suspects that
they were carried out by
persons who do not want
prostitution in La
Merced, and by pimps who
do not tolerate
rebelliousness.
In this part of Mexico
City, women in revealing
clothing show off their
wares all day long among
street vendors, shops
and hundreds of
passers-by. They charge
the equivalent of 15
dollars for sex, which
takes place in hotels,
rooms and houses in the
district.
Each prostitute must
hand over between 200
and 400 dollars a day to
her pimp. To make this
sum she has to service
at least 13 clients a
day. In exchange, the
mafias give her a room,
food and some spending
money.
Brigada Callejera, which
began working in La
Merced but has now
expanded to other
neighbourhoods and
cities, estimates that
one-third of the sex
workers in La Merced are
under 18.
No one really knows how
many sex trade rings are
operating in La Merced,
or in Mexico as a whole,
but investigations by
the Attorney General’s
Office indicate that
trafficking in persons
is a flourishing
activity that is linked
to drug and arms
smuggling.
Reports by the Attorney
General’s Office,
Interpol and the U.S.
Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA)
show that prostitution
is a multi-billion
dollar business in
Mexico.
Russian and Ukrainian
mafias operate in this
country, smuggling in
women from Eastern
European countries, as
well as the
Cuban-American mafia
that brings in women
from the Caribbean and
the rest of Latin
America.
Local prostitution rings
pay traffickers around
30,000 dollars for women
from Europe in the
"diamond VIP" category,
which means they are
beautiful, young and
well-educated.
These women are mainly
taken to Mexico City and
Cancún, a resort city on
the Caribbean coast,
which are hotspots of
the sex trade in Mexico.
There they work at
agencies offering "high
class escorts," and in
exclusive night clubs.
The deputy attorney
general for
international affairs,
José Luis Santiago
Vasconcelos, said in
2003 that the mafias
bringing in European
women were made up of
"well-trained and highly
dangerous people,"
several of whom had
belonged to the KGB, the
intelligence agency of
the former Soviet Union.
There have only been a
handful of arrests and
legal actions against
these groups in recent
years.
"The geographical
position of our country,
bordering the United
States which is the
largest consumer in the
sex trade, makes us a
good place for
prostitution at all
levels," said Montejo.
Brigada Callejera helps
sex workers form
cooperatives and gain
access to medical care,
while distributing
condoms and working to
prevent the spread of
HIV/AIDS.
Montejo says that police
and immigration
authorities and local
and national government
officials are involved
with large and small
prostitution rings
alike, allowing the sex
business to function and
profiting from it as
much as possible.
"Everyone knows that,"
he said.
He cited the city of
Tijuana, on the U.S.
border, as one example.
The city government
there collects over
150,000 dollars a year
from payments made by
sex workers.
Another example is La
Merced in the capital,
which has more than 30
hotels, rooms and other
places where
prostitution is
practised. According to
Montejo, in order to
operate, these places
pay some 450,000 dollars
a year to the police and
municipal authorities. |
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