Sex trafficking is prevalent along the southern U.S.-Mexico border.

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Sex trafficking is prevalent along the southern U.S.-Mexico border.

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Much of the street-level sex trafficking operations that take place here are “family operations” reportedly run by networks of padrotes, the local term used to refer to pimps.10 They operate out of strip clubs, bars, and informal motels of the type we saw in the Zona Norte. Their victims are often migrant women coming from Central and South America. They also include those that have arrived at the border city from other parts of central and southern Mexico, such as the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Puebla. In this context, victims feel like there are “zero options to denounce the problem in a place that is not your own,” according to one transgender sex worker who migrated to the area from elsewhere in Mexico searching for employment.

Some experts estimate there may be hundreds of trafficking cells of between 4 and 20 individuals engaged in sexually exploiting women and girls between the border city of Tijuana and Mexicali. However, it is difficult to determine the true number of networks dedicated to this underground criminal economy

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Claim about human trafficking

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Human Trafficking at the U.S - Mexico border