These young adults and teenagers were ready to change the world.
A group of women and gender nonconforming teens and young adults shared a common desire to create greater acceptance in their Latin American community. They had found a group who seemed to promise this.
Many of them were LGBTQ+ youth who may have been kicked out of their own families and were desperate for an alternative home. The predatory adults who found them promised community, food, housing, and the chance to make a difference. The older adults truly seemed trustworthy and reputable; one of them even had a reputation as an activist.
Unfortunately, these traffickers had learned that false promises of belonging were the perfect ruse to play on those who were already vulnerable.
Keeping the teens and young adults in a network of bars and using parks for recruitment, this network trafficked them for sex and forced them to transport drugs. When they resisted, those in the criminal network would physically abuse the victims and drug them into compliance. No one was allowed to leave their place of exploitation without a trafficker accompanying them as a handler.
Unfortunately, traffickers learn that false promises of belonging were the perfect ruse to play on those who were already vulnerable. (Image representative)
The result was that they were able to free three teenage girls, but the trafficker escaped. However, law enforcement have continued to pursue him, closing in. In the following weeks, they took him into custody, shutting down the hotel he had owned and operated as a brothel.
Social workers from both The Exodus Road and the government were present to take care of the teenage girls. They were transferred to a government safe home where they will receive care as they recover from their trauma.
Meanwhile, we’ll continue to pick at the threads of evil and injustice until we unravel the whole system. Thank you for allowing us to continue pursuing these complex tapestries of trafficking, in Thailand and around the world!
*Images representative
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