Sexual Violence and Proximate Risks: A Study on Trafficked Women in Mexico City

Trafficking in humans is an integral part of the social and economic fabric in Mexico as in other parts of the world. This practice causes intolerable degradation and suffering for the girls and young women involved and are treated as a commodity. The process results in a risk to their physical and mental health, and in particular, to their sexual health, which I have explored in this research. Sixty trafficked women currently working as commercial sex workers were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire, and 13 in-depth interviews were conducted in the La Merced red-light area of Mexico City. Trafficked women in Mexico are basically young women, have little education and are mostly unmarried. The women I interviewed were working in cheap hotels and were living with a pimp. In the week prior to the interviews, 70 percent were beaten with objects, 100 percent were abused verbally, 28 percent were burned by lighting cigarettes, 36 percent were threatened with being killed and 22 percent were raped by clients and traffickers. Unwanted pregnancies and forced abortions were common; 65 percent had had at least one abortion. Almost all women had been infected by sexually transmitted diseases. The present research concluded that sexual violence has serious physical and mental health risks on trafficked women and it needs an urgent response from the government not only to provide health facilities to these women but also to eradicate women trafficking in Mexico.