The teenagers and young women were living in cramped and squalid conditions.
In their few hours of stolen rest, they slept three to a mattress. They never had enough food. The haze of malnutrition and psychoactive substances made it hard to envision any life beyond the work they were forced to show up for, day after day.
That work took place at three brothels tucked away in a rural landscape just outside a small town in Latin America. The sparsely-populated space made it easy to hide terrible abuse.
Traffickers had tricked the girls with promises of easy, stable work. Instead, they exacted quotas of sex buyers served, withheld earnings, and cemented the cycle of sexual exploitation with threats and abuse. For three of the teenagers, the exploitation was an intimately personal betrayal: they were being trafficked by their older sister, a leader in the trafficking network.
The Exodus Road received a tip about these sisters. They knew they had to act.
Even though the brothels were in a remote area, our investigators made the trip to gather information. They found the sisters, confirming that at 15, 16, and 17 years of age, they were being sold for sex by their older sister and her accomplices. They also found over 30 more girls and young women, all of them similarly exploited and abused.
Law enforcement took that evidence and acted. They freed the survivors, more than half of whom were younger than 18. Many of the young women were migrants who had been trapped while seeking safety.
Police arrested the woman who had trafficked her vulnerable younger sisters, taking an additional two accomplices into custody.
These young women are receiving aftercare from the government. Because of The Exodus Road’s community, they have space to begin healing. Thank you for being a part of making safety possible for them!
*Name and image representative
