Two hours southeast of Mexico City lies a town where forced prostitution is not only the norm, but a booming business that employs most of the city's 10, residents. Tenancingo, Mexico, widely considered the sex trafficking capital of the world, is the single largest source of sex slaves sent to the US, according to the US State Department. The city was highlighted in a recent Newsweek article describing new city-to-farm sex pipelines , in which prostitutes from Mexico working mostly in Queens, New York are delivered to farms by traffickers to have sex with migrant workers.
Before they are trafficked to the US, women and girls as young as 14 are routinely kidnapped from villages surrounding Tenancingo by men who trick, threaten, and even seduce them into working for the illicit sex trade.
The phenomenon likely started when agricultural work became scarce, forcing men to find other ways to make money. The trade has proven extremely lucrative: A Tenancingo pimp with three women working for him can make up to half a million dollars per year sending them to the US, Fusion reported last year. These grand homes actually aid pimps in recruiting prostitutes, who are usually from rural villages where such grandeur does not exist, according to the BBC. What many of the town's residents fail to realize, however, is that the prostitutes are not willing participants.
Tenancingo pimps are masters of manipulation β trafficking clans which are really just informal organizations led by families send their most handsome men, often called "romeos," to pick up young women at bus stops or in parks. They pretend to be wealthy salesmen and seduce the women into following them. One woman told the NY Daily News that she was held captive for two months by her "boyfriend" in Tenancingo after going there to "meet his family.
While some women are coerced, others are kidnapped and have no choice at all. One Mexican woman, Miranda, tells Fusion that she was forced into prostitution at 14 after accepting a ride home from a "friendly" man named "Rudolfo" who she met in the park.
