Mexican author Lydia Cacho on prostitution

On her visit to Argentina, Mexican author Lydia Cacho, says that the Mexican Sinaloa and Zetas cartels began recruiting victims within the South American country under false pretenses or by force for purposes of trafficking and sexual exploitation. "Selling a human being is much more profitable than drugs," she says. Her book, Esclavas del Poder (Slaves of Power) explores this. She continued "Both the Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel are already here and are buying human beings," warned the journalist, who said they are working in small communities that are "in poverty and whose economy is damaged." She tells of a drug dealer she interviewed that said a kilo of cocaine you sell once, but a girl you can sell hundreds of times. She also took aim at the normalization of prostitution made by society and the political system. "According to statistics from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in Argentina there are half a million women trapped in trafficking networks, and there are 8 000 brothels, including the thousand verified in the city of Buenos Aires by the NGO La Alameda". In her book, Cacho recounts the history of women and girls who escaped the circuit of trafficking. "In five years I have seen the exercise of the most infamous cruelty with little girls prostituted, humiliated. But I also saw people risking everything to save them. That helped me keep sanity to such horror and not lose faith in the human condition "she said. The writer quoted the emblematic Susana Trimarco, who for 10 years has been searching for her daughter Marita Veron and along the way, managed to free dozens of young victims of prostitution. She still has not managed to find the whereabouts of the woman.