HUMAN TRAFFICKING NOTEBOOK

In one small Mexican town, sex trafficking appears to be a sort of family business, handed down from one generation to another, but with untold numbers of young Mexican women traumatized — perhaps for life.

According to an investigative report by the Associated Press, the impoverished town of Tenancingo, in central Mexico, is the home to a prostitution ring that has operated for at least three generations luring young women into sex trafficking in Mexico City and in the U.S.

One anthropologist who has studied the ring says that, in the town of just over 10,000, there may be as many as 3,000 people directly involved the (prostitution) trade. Prosecutors say the network includes female relatives of the pimps, who often serve as go-betweens or supervisors, or who care for the children of women working as prostitutes.