Coordinator of the Global Alliance against Trafficking in Women (GAATW), Bandana Pattanaik, warned this Tuesday of the role of drug trafficking in human trafficking on Mexico’s southern border, where drug cartel disputes affect migration.
During a visit to Tapachula, the largest city on the border between Mexico and Central America, Pattanaik explained that hThere are many similar aspects regarding trafficking and smuggling networks worldwide, But what differentiates Mexico and Latin America at this time is the involvement of drug trafficking in this process.
“People’s experiences show the involvement of criminal groups,” said the leader of GAATW, which represents more than 100 civil organizations worldwide, through a translator.
The activist said that, on the southern border of Mexico, “met a 22-year-old young man from Ecuador who came walking from his country and right along its path lCriminal networks killed three people because they were not given money that they demanded to pass through one of their points.”
The president of the organization Brigada Callejera, Elvira Madrid Romero, agreed with this assessment, citing a 30 percent increase in trafficking cases that the organization detected on the southern border, indicating that criminal networks and organized crime are getting stronger.
He also found worrying the new trends of trafficking networks, which They make alliances from the countries of origin of the migrants, which makes it more difficult for victims to escape this environment, in addition to an increase in femicides, murders of women for gender reasons.
“What the girls we have supported have told us is that They have them locked up in closed places for exclusive clients,” he told.
Madrid Romero commented that although Mexico is a country where there is no war, More than 110 thousand people are missing and there are many graves of bodies of unidentified people that are happening.
“The worst thing is that organized crime not only controls drug trafficking, but also human trafficking, extortion and kidnapping,” he said.
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The alert comes amid a surge in violence as organized crime cartels battle to control the flow of drugs and people from Central America’s border with Mexico, where the government reported a 193 percent year-on-year increase in irregular migration in the first half of the year.