Almost three out of four women and girls who are victims of trafficking are exploited for sexual purposes. The federal attorney's office released a video on social media warning women about the modus operandi of criminals to recruit and force them, mostly into sexual work. In the first month of 2025, Quintana Roo led the number of reports of human trafficking with 15 cases, followed by eight cases of trafficking women, according to La Jornada Maya. By the end of 2023, 382 cases were reported.
Human trafficking is a crime that, through the recruitment, transportation, transfer, reception, or hosting of people, exploits women, children, and men for various purposes, including forced labor and sexual exploitation, according to a statement from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System. Adult women represent 51% of detected human trafficking victims worldwide.
In recent months, at least three rescues of women victims of human trafficking have taken place in Quintana Roo. The Attorney General's Office of Quintana Roo, in coordination with elements of the Interinstitutional Group, rescued 21 women victims of human trafficking in the context of third-party prostitution in Othón P. Blanco and Bacalar. Subsequently, 14 women victims of human trafficking in the context of prostitution were rescued during the execution of a search warrant in two bars in Cozumel. The most recent case occurred in Cancun on April 12, when Mexican authorities rescued 16 women, 14 of them foreign, who were allegedly victims of human trafficking for sexual and labor exploitation. No arrests were reported during the raids.
"They are taken far from the place where they live to be exploited," stated the Attorney General of the Republic. According to official data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, collected by Amnesty International, from January to June 2024, 185 cases of victims of human trafficking were reported in Mexico. Together, women and girls account for nearly 71%, with girls making up almost three out of four child victims of trafficking.
The Attorney General of the Republic warned women in general to avoid being lured by supposed job offers or romantic relationships, situations exploited by criminals to turn them into victims of human trafficking in Mexico. "Many women are lured by traffickers through offers of easy jobs with extraordinary profits or promises of marriage," the Attorney General's Office warned.
