Human smuggling and sex trafficking among smugglers and drug cartels

Abstract

Human smuggling and trafficking are different concepts. In the first case, the victim of the crime is the State, in the second it is the person. This article, based on a qualitative methodology, which includes interviews with 66 human smugglers, 92 nightclub owners, and 30 migrant women who were smuggled by human smugglers and trafficked by cartels, seeks to answer the following research question: Is the smuggling of women for prostitution operated by human smugglers different from sex trafficking operated by drug cartels? The discourse of human smugglers, nightclub owners and victims coincided in underlining that woman smuggling for prostitution operated by human smugglers presented a radically different nature from the sex trafficking operated by the Mexican drug cartels. Smugglers did not use force; on the contrary, the cartels kidnapped the victims, limited their food intake, and brutally abused them. While the women smuggled to the United States by smugglers received high financial compensation, the victims recruited by the cartels were relentlessly exploited and never received any kind of remuneration.