Human trafficking begins to eclipse drug trade in Mexico

The “War on Drugs” as viewed in Mexico and the U.S. is changing. No longer are President Felipe Calderón, the police, and Mexican military forces fighting just drug trafficking; now they must do battle against the rising trafficking of sex. As Calderón has been distracted with drug control he has inadvertently allowed for the growth of human trafficking, a lucrative business left largely unregulated by Mexican law. Human trafficking accounts for 6.6 billion USD a year in Mexico alone,1 a figure that is growing as human trafficking continues its rise in profitability. The vast expansion of human trafficking from Mexico to the United States is notable in its absence from the media; instead, a wealth of analysis of drug related problems continually takes the spotlight. Conservative estimates conclude that over 100,000 women, a number predicted to increase by the end of 2010, are trafficked out of Latin America annually for the purpose of prostitution. The problem with human and sex trafficking is that it has become a side business for many cartels to supplement their lost income in the “war on drugs.” Kloer again explains it best: “When a drug cartel traffics a pound of cocaine into the U.S., they can only sell it once. When they traffic a young woman into the U.S., they can sell her again and again.”...more