2023 Trafficking in Persons Report: Mexico

As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Mexico, and traffickers exploit victims from Mexico abroad. Groups considered most at risk for trafficking in Mexico include unaccompanied children, Indigenous persons, persons with mental and physical disabilities, asylum-seekers and migrants, IDPs, LGBTQI+ individuals, informal sector workers, and children in gang-controlled territories. These groups commonly experienced risk factors including marginalization, intrafamily and social violence, crime, and a need to migrate within the country or abroad to find employment. Traffickers recruit and exploit Mexican women and children, and to a lesser extent men, in sex trafficking in Mexico and the United States through false promises of employment, deceptive romantic relationships, or extortion. The majority of trafficking cases occur among family, intimate partners, acquaintances on social media, or through employment-related traps. Local experts report an especially high prevalence of child sex trafficking in Tlaxcala, where parents or other family members are often complicit in facilitating these crimes. Powerful family-run networks target and seduce girls in the community, then exploit them in sex trafficking in Mexico or the United States. The online sexual exploitation of children continued to increase during the year. Transgender persons are particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking. Traffickers increasingly use the internet, particularly social media, to target and recruit potential victims; an NGO reported more than 60 percent of victims who called the anti-trafficking hotline were initially recruited through websites or social media. The same NGO reported an increase in reports of traffickers recruiting children through video games. Traffickers exploit Mexican adults and children in forced labor in both the formal and informal economies in Mexico and the United States; they subject victims to forced labor in sectors including agriculture, domestic service, child care, manufacturing, mining, food processing, construction, tourism, begging, and street vending. Traffickers commonly exploit day laborers and their children in forced labor in Mexico’s agricultural sector, with most victims coming from economically vulnerable and indigenous populations. Individuals and families migrate from the poorest states to the agricultural regions to harvest vegetables, coffee, sugar, and tobacco; many receive little or no pay or time off; endure inhumane housing conditions without access to adequate food, clean water, or medical care; and are denied education for children. Some employers illegally withhold weekly wages to compel agricultural workers to meet certain harvest quotas or continue working until the end of the harvest. “Enganchadores” frequently employ deceptive recruitment practices and charge unlawful fees to place agricultural workers in Mexico and the United States; many workers are promised decent wages and a good standard of living, then subsequently compelled into forced labor through debt bondage, threats of violence, and non-payment of wages. NGOs estimated traffickers increasingly exploited individuals in forced labor in Mexico. The vast majority of foreign victims of forced labor and sex trafficking in Mexico are from Central and South America, particularly El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Venezuela – with Venezuelan victims increasing in recent years; traffickers exploited some of these victims along Mexico’s southern border. NGOs and the media report victims from the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa have also been identified in Mexico, some en route to the United States. Cuban nationals working in Mexico, including medical professionals contracted by the Mexican government, may have been forced to work by the Cuban government. Organized criminal groups profit from sex trafficking and force Mexican and foreign adults and children to engage in illicit activities, including as assassins, lookouts, and in the production, transportation, and sale of drugs. Experts expressed particular concern over the forced recruitment of Indigenous children by organized criminal groups, who use torture and credible threats of murder to exploit these children in forced criminality. Criminal groups exploit thousands of children in Mexico to serve as lookouts, carry out attacks on authorities and rival groups, perform fuel theft, or work in poppy fields. Observers also expressed concern over recruitment of recently deported Mexican nationals and foreign migrants by organized criminal groups for the purpose of forced criminality. Migrants and asylum seekers in or transiting Mexico are vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor, including by large and small organized criminal groups. Traffickers frequently target the most vulnerable migrants and asylum-seekers who are often fearful to report abuses, including members of marginalized populations that frequently experience discrimination from authorities. Migrants who rely on migrant smugglers are at particularly high risk of exploitation as many of them assume debts to pay smugglers. Observers, including Mexican legislators, noted links between violence against women and girls and between women’s disappearances, murders, and trafficking by organized criminal groups. Observers reported potential trafficking cases in substance abuse rehabilitation centers, women’s shelters, and government institutions for people with disabilities, including by organized criminal groups and facility employees. Trafficking-related corruption remains a concern. Some government officials collude with traffickers or participate in trafficking crimes. Corrupt officials reportedly participate in sex trafficking, including running sex trafficking operations. Some immigration officials allegedly accept payment from traffickers to facilitate the irregular entry of foreign trafficking victims into Mexico. The government reported child sex tourism is increasing, especially in tourist areas and in northern border cities. Parents are sometimes complicit in exploiting their children in child sex tourism, and children experiencing homelessness are also believed to be at high risk. Many child sex tourists are from the United States, Canada, and Western Europe; Mexican men also purchase sex from child trafficking victims. Authorities reported trafficking networks increasingly used cryptocurrencies to launder proceeds from their crimes.

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