Tenancingo is a town and its surrounding

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

in the

Mexican state A Mexican State (), officially the Free and Sovereign State (), is a constituent federative entity of Mexico according to the Constitution of Mexico. Currently there are 31 states, each with its own constitution, government, state governor, a ...

Tlaxcala Tlaxcala, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tlaxcala, is one of the 32 federal entities that comprise the Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into Municipalities of Tlaxcala, 60 municipalities and t ...

. Tenancingo is now considered to be the center for sex trafficking throughout Mexico, with roots of the practice dating back to the 1970s. It is home to local

organized crime Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...

operations who work in collaboration with the larger

cartels A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collaborate with each other as well as agreeing not to compete with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. A cartel is an organization formed by producers ...

Los Zetas Los Zetas (, Spanish for "The Zs") is a Mexican criminal syndicate and designated terrorist organization, known as one of the most dangerous of Mexico's drug cartels. They are known for engaging in brutally violent " shock and awe" tactics suc ...

, Nuevo Milenio, Caballeros Templarios, and the

Gulf Cartel The Gulf Cartel ( , or ''Golfos'') is a criminal syndicate, Drug cartel, drug trafficking organization, and U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, which is perhaps one of the oldest organized crime groups in Mexico. It is currently bas ...

Sex trade and human trafficking

Of the 10,000 inhabitants of Tenancingo, it is estimated that 1,000 are sex traffickers. Local

sexual exploitation Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership rights, right over one or more people with the intent of Coercion, coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activities. This includ ...

human trafficking Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving individuals through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of exploitation. This exploitation may include forced labor, sexual slavery, or oth ...

pimping Procuring, pimping, or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute or other sex worker in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. A procurer, colloquially called a pimp (if male) or a madam (if female, though the term "pimp" ...

and

forced prostitution Forced prostitution, also known as involuntary prostitution or compulsory prostitution, is prostitution or sexual slavery that takes place as a result of coercion by a third party. The terms "forced prostitution" or "enforced prostitution" app ...

industries in Tenancingo are estimated to be worth $1 billion

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

annually, with direct ties to the international

sex trade The sex industry (also called the sex trade) consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related se ...

. These practices have been denounced by dozens of

NGOs A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

. Recent investigations and a documentary ''Pimp City: A Journey to the Center of the Sex Trade'' (2014), have revealed that the small town was identified by the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

as the leading provider of female sex slaves to the United States. According to the documentary, the entire political structure and police force of the town are implicated in

and

. The

U.N. The United Nations (UN) is the global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among st ...

estimates profits for the global human trafficking and sex trade industries at US$32 billion annually, making it the third most profitable illegal global industry. On October 11,

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

, the

Attorney General of Mexico The attorney general of the Republic is the head of the Attorney General's Office (; prior to 2019, ) and the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office of the United Mexican States, an institution belonging to the Federal Government's constitutional ...

arrested three members of a sex-trafficking ring in Tenancingo.

References

Municipalities of Tlaxcala {{Tlaxcala-geo-stub