An official website of the United States government Watch Live at 11:30 a.m. ET: Results of Nationwide Law Enforcement Effort Press Conference View the latest ICE guidance on COVID-19 Get information about how to check in with your local ICE Office here Reportándose con ICE: Obtenga información sobre cómo reportarse a su oficina local de ICE aquí View in other languages Call 1-866-DHS-2-ICE to report suspicious activityReport Crime Learn More About ICE ICE's ERO officers uphold United States immigration laws by focusing on individuals who present the greatest risk to national security View the annual report Media Inquiries the archive contains content from a previous administration or is otherwise outdated This information is archived and not reflective of current practice Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Mexican Federal Police announced Thursday the capture of one of ICE’s top 10 most wanted human traffickers Paulino Ramirez-Granados was arrested March 31 in Tenancingo following a joint investigation between ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Mexico City HSI New York and the Mexican Federal Police who had been on the most wanted list since 2010 was charged in the Eastern District of New York with sex trafficking money laundering and conspiracy to import aliens The HSI New York investigation into the Granados sex trafficking organization began when a nongovernmental organization referred a trafficking victim to HSI The victim had been smuggled into the United States and forced into prostitution in June 2000 by a member of the Granados family.  She provided a detailed account of the physical and sexual assaults she suffered by a member of the Granados organization and threats made to the safety of her children when she said she no longer wanted to work as a prostitute HSI special agents identified and rescued 25 additional victims – all Mexican nationals – and 19 additional traffickers or smugglers all members or associates of the Granados family Several victims were sexually assaulted by their traffickers and all were threatened with harm to their family members Members of the Granados family would befriend or romance young uneducated women before pressuring them or coercing them into prostitution in Mexico They would then smuggle their victims into the United States and transport them to the New York City area to work as prostitutes.  Granados family members would take all money earned by the victims and maintain control over the victims through physical and sexual abuse and threats of harm to the victims’ families Several of the victims had children with their traffickers and were threatened with the loss of their children if they did not continue to work as prostitutes and earn money for the Granados family To date, 13 members of the Granados organization have been indicted in the Eastern District of New York on sex trafficking charges. Twelve have been arrested, and one – Raul Granados-Rendon – remains a fugitive Anyone with information about the whereabouts of Granados Rendon should immediately ;contact the local ICE office or call the national hotline at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE (866-347-2423) as soon as possible. From outside the U.S. and Canada, callers should dial 802-872-6199. Tips can also be submitted online at www.ICE.gov/tips For media inquiries about ICE activities, operations, or policies, contact the ICE Office of Public Affairs at ICEMedia@ice.dhs.gov Powerful networks of traffickers operate out of Tenancingo Women and girls are forced by criminal networks to sell sex on the streets Citizens in the United States and Mexico can help fight sex trafficking '+n.escapeExpression("function"==typeof(o=null!=(o=r(e,"eyebrowText")||(null!=l?r(l,"eyebrowText"):l))?o:n.hooks.helperMissing)?o.call(null!=l?l:n.nullContext||{},{name:"eyebrowText",hash:{},data:t,loc:{start:{line:28,column:63},end:{line:28,column:78}}}):o)+" \n '+(null!=(o=c(e,"if").call(r,null!=l?c(l,"cta2PreText"):l,{name:"if",hash:{},fn:n.program(32,t,0),inverse:n.noop,data:t,loc:{start:{line:63,column:20},end:{line:63,column:61}}}))?o:"")+"\n"+(null!=(o=(c(e,"ifAll")||l&&c(l,"ifAll")||n.hooks.helperMissing).call(r,null!=l?c(l,"cta2Text"):l,null!=l?c(l,"cta2Link"):l,{name:"ifAll",hash:{},fn:n.program(34,t,0),inverse:n.noop,data:t,loc:{start:{line:64,column:20},end:{line:70,column:30}}}))?o:"")+" and had been cleaning houses since the age of eight a small town in the neighbouring state of Tlaxcala and within a fortnight moved with him to Tenancingo At first López and his family treated her well “He sent me to work as a prostitute in Tijuana Aguascalientes – all over the country to make money selling my body,” Méndez “He said the money was to buy land so we could build a little house like thousands of other vulnerable women in Mexico was hoodwinked by a family of traffickers in Tlaxcala the country’s smallest state just two hours east of Mexico City where the indigenous Nahua people united with the Spanish to conquer the mighty Aztecs but which over the past five decades has transformed into an unlikely hub of human trafficking In the US, five of the 10 “most wanted” sex traffickers are from Tenancingo Trafficking networks rooted in Tlaxcala are the biggest source of sex slaves in the US This improbable crime story began in the 1950s after industrialisation when working-age men returned home from neighbouring states to find few opportunities beyond badly paid factory jobs Some of the most powerful Tlaxcala families are believed to collaborate with Mexico’s most feared cartels In 2008 trafficking was detected in 23 of Tlaxcala’s 60 municipalities. By last year this had increased to 35, according to research conducted by local human rights group the Fray Julián Garcés centre which has identified six “red zones” where sexual exploitation is most concentrated (A government official told the Observer there were no red zones in Tlaxcala) the presence of organised crime is breathtaking tawdry houses are scattered among rows of ordinary despite pressure from NGOs to improve transparency and target trafficking proceeds The mansions look like fancy multilayered wedding cakes adorned with sculptured eagles The grandiosity continues into the cemetery where tombs are ornate and extravagant – not unlike those seen in villages of the northern state of Sinaloa from where many of the drug cartel leaders hail a striking colonial church towers over taco stalls and shoe-shiners a typical lunchtime scene apart from the new white Mustang and Chevrolet parked beside a bar a group of men in their 30s and 40s sporting designer jeans and T-shirts knock back cold beers under the piercing afternoon sun Two police officers are stationed less than 150 metres away “These guys are the archetypal padrotes [pimps],” said Emilio Muñoz a Tlaxcala native and director of human rights and gender violence at the Fray Julián Garcés centre “They are the ones who go to other states looking for vulnerable girls to trick – that’s their role in the family business and it’s the same families who sponsor religious festivals and community events They operate with almost complete impunity Trafficking has become so normalised and rewarding that young people look up to them.” One in five children here wants to be a pimp when they grow up, according to a 2010 University of Tlaxcala study. Two-thirds of youngsters surveyed knew of at least one relative or friend working as a pimp or trafficker A street in Tenancingo Photograph: New York Daily News/ GettyThe old interstate highway connecting Axotla with Tenancingo is lined with cheap hotels Official notices indicate a few recent closures young women wearing fake leather trousers and platform heels emerge near the hotels to attract the attention of passing motorists In recent years the modus operandi for trafficking throughout Mexico has shifted from kidnap and brute violence towards psychological deception and fake relationships uneducated and often indigenous girls and women are dazzled and lured with the promise of jobs or marriage women are initially persuaded to prostitute “for love” in order to help resolve a financial crisis which the trafficking family feigns By the time they realise and accept they are victims their “husbands” use beatings and threats against their parents and children – often fathered by the traffickers – to control them “The few successful prosecutions have mainly involved international crime groups yet most trafficking in Mexico occurs within close family and friends’ circles using rustic methods of seduction which are very difficult to investigate and prosecute,” Felipe de la Torre US authorities have prosecuted several powerful Tlaxcala families, most famously the Carreto clan, who between 1991 and 2004 duped, coerced and trafficked Mexican women into prostitution in New York City to be reunited with her daughter who was left growing up within the Carreto family in Tenancingo “There is a lack of political will and legal sensitivity when it comes to reuniting victims with their children – who are at huge risk of being trafficked or absorbed into the crime family,” said Gretchen Kuhner, director of the Institute for Women in Migration The Tlaxcala government told the Observer that it has jailed 14 people for trafficking-related crimes since 2011 – around 10% of the national total Authorities have rescued 127 trafficking victims and conducted hundreds of awareness-raising events There are an estimated 20,000 trafficking victims in Mexico every year, according to the International Organisation for Migration. Tlaxcala has no refuge for trafficking victims. Méndez endured 10 years of arrests, humiliation and threats, before finding strength through her faith to stand up to López and stop prostituting herself. “He beat me, threatened to take our children, but I stayed with him because of the shame. I couldn’t bear to tell my family the awful things I had done, or who my husband really was.” They are still married, and live together near where the girls are forced to prostitute themselves on the highway. López works in a shop, though his extended family continue trafficking. Méndez added: “These men in their nice cars think money is more important than human dignity, but they are monsters, just like my husband. Sometimes when I see the poor girls I can’t breathe. I pray one day this town can come out of this.” Names have been changed to protect individuals This article was amended on 10 April to correctly place Tlaxcala east of Mexico City. This is the archive of The Observer up until 21/04/2025. The Observer is now owned and operated by Tortoise Media. which means I work like a nutcase to bring you these stories because I love it - and some of you stars make it happen please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber It’s told there is a ritual among the pimps of Tenancingo that when a son is born his umbilical cord is displayed for a month under the moonlight while his penis is left unwashed the grease and muck that has built up under his foreskin is rubbed into his belly button during a ceremony; the connection of mother to child through the umbilical cord is replaced by a connection of man to woman through the penis The pimping tradition is passed down through families and celebrated in a local carnival where men dress in menacing masks and crack whips More pertinently, U.S. courts have convicted more than fifty Tenancingo men for trafficking women and underage girls to sell for sex in the United States, especially New York City. Others are still at large and the town produces a startlingly high proportion of ICE’s most-wanted sex traffickers Women have testified to being entrapped by men who profess to love them but then burn them with irons and sell them for sex thousands of times on the street At a 2022 sentencing hearing in New York, a victim identified as Delia confronted her abuser Francisco Meléndez Pérez She had been seduced by the Tenancingo pimp at 13 and forced into the New York sex trade at 14 I hope that you go to hell because that is where you put me,” she told him in front of the court I ask the court to give Francisco Meléndez Pérez the harshest sentence possible for what he did to me and to the other victims.” (He got 25 years) Forcing teenage girls into sex slavery is one of the most horrific of all crimes and justifiably provokes a visceral reaction It’s a vital issue that I will follow in this newsletter which focuses on organized crime and drugs bad information and at times mass panics around such an emotive offense One issue is that people can conflate the much smaller number of human trafficking cases which is when people cross the border to work under coercion with the much larger business of human smuggling in which people willingly pay “coyotes” to take them north Some activists also classify all cases of prostitution as sex slavery cutting into a deeper debate about whether prostitution itself should be abolished (and if that is possible) or kept in a grey area or fully legalized We need to better document what is really going on and its scale so the most abhorrent crimes can be fought effectively I believe the concrete cases of sex trafficking could be massively reduced with effective law enforcement Tenancingo is a genuine ground zero for sex trafficking in Mexico and leaves a trail of deeply-scarred victims Yet we need to be careful of projecting the crimes there as representative of what happens across the whole country and there are questions about how the racket really functions The Walled City The name Tenancingo comes from the indigenous Nahuatl tongue and roughly means “important fortress,” but is commonly translated as “walled city.” People in the state of Tlaxcala spoke the same language as the Aztecs but they famously allied with the Spanish against them although Tenancingo has deep indigenous roots Various TV crews including Fox News and CNN have gone to investigate Tenancingo’s sex trade and been threatened and chased out of the city discreetly taking photos and talking to people Tenancingo contrasts with Mexico’s hardcore narco towns such as La Tuna While La Tuna is on a dirt road in the mountains and has gunmen openly guarding it Tenancingo is close to the capital and just 20 minutes from the thriving city of Puebla There are no obvious triggermen on the road although word of outsiders can quickly go round the close-knit community Tenancingo resembles other working class towns in central Mexico Buses and cars crawl down cheaply-paved streets past walls painted with ads for political candidates and cumbia concerts A central plaza surrounds a church with stalls cooking giant quesadillas unleashing clouds of smoke with the scent of chili a rather twisted term as it plays on the word for father They leave scattered visual signs around town Motels painted in pink offer two-hour stays; the Tenancingo sex trade begins at home catering to men from the area and truck drivers en route to the capital A few flashy cars of likely padrotes circle the plaza blasting beats Much has been made of “mansions” the sex trade has built. But the ostentatious dwellings are more like large houses with walls and pillars that stand out in a poor area yet are a long way from the homes of the super rich. Claims the traffic brings a billion dollars annually to the town, repeated in Wikipedia, are surely vastly exaggerated. Sex trafficking in Tenancingo was first exposed by Tlaxcala’s Fray Julián Garcés Human Rights Center in the early 2000s. A center coordinator, Emilio Muñoz, says the padrotes make cash but within limits. “Compared to the socioeconomic level of the region, they have more money, but they are not millionaires. They do have luxury cars that local workers don’t have, and constructions with a higher value. But they don’t have the power of the big drug traffickers.” Still, Muñoz says, the padrotes are big players in a small town with power and status that youngsters look up to. In 2010, sociology students from Tlaxcala’s state university conducted a questionnaire in Tenancingo schools, asking boys directly if they wanted to be padrotes. A full 26 percent said yes. While that is a loaded question, it’s still alarming. Muñoz says the figure of 10 percent working in the sex trade is difficult to prove but could well be true. In addition to padrotes, there are drivers, look outs, money launderers, cooks, messengers and others keeping the racket going. The money from the violent exploitation of its victims is divided among many hands. Local anthropologist Oscar Montiel studied the growth of the Tenancingo padrotes, tracing it to the 1970s when industrial development and new roads took men to work in Mexico City where they learned about the sex trade. But the harsh treatment of women also echoes older rural practices such as “robbing brides.” The padrotes have developed a modus operandi of traveling to towns in poor Mexican states such as Puebla, Veracruz and Chiapas, and finding vulnerable girls. They flash their cars and jewellery and seduce them. In some cases, they spend months grooming them but in others it’s only days. The Tenancingo padrotes utilize La Merced in Mexico City as a base for their prostitution. It’s a sprawling marketplace in the historic center with canvas-covered stalls next to dilapidated buildings, and rows of trendy sneakers close to smelly heaps of osyters and piles of garbage. Scantily-clad women line up by a fence opposite a row of shops, looking into their cellphones and holding up umbrellas. The girls and women are sold for sex in La Merced for as little as 200 pesos or 12 dollars but the padrotes can make more than four times that in the United States. They often lure girls on the journey north with a promise of work and when they have them in a house without papers force them into prostitution. The padrotes can slip over the Rio Grande by paying human smugglers, who in turn work with the cartels that control the southern side of the border. The drivers and padrotes divide the money but the girls make next to nothing. “They just give them food and a place to live. That is why they are slaves.” So what is the scale of this “modern day slavery” its clandestine nature means we can’t be sure The annual report of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) says they rescued 765 victims of human trafficking in 2022 they say about 80 percent of their cases are of forced labor (which can mean underage workers in fields) so less than 200 would likely be sex trafficking victims There are of course many victims that aren’t rescued. Still, HSI appears to put a lot of resources and agents into fighting this crime, as it should. Victims are also recruited inside the United States itself. But even taking this into account, it looks more likely there are thousands rather than hundreds of thousands of victims on U.S. soil. Yet the crime does continue, and the padrotes wouldn’t do it unless they kept making money. For it to be stamped out then policing would need to be more effective still. A big part of the problem lies in Tlaxcala. The padrotes have influence at a town and state level, likely buying off police and other officials. The human rights defender Muñoz says that between 2017 and 2022, Tlaxcala investigators opened 52 files on padrotes, but only one has led to a prison sentence. Three things are needed to smash the trade, Muñoz argues: more prevention work teaching girls to avoid the padrotes; better support for victims; and stronger prosecutions. People need to exert pressure to make these things happen, he says. “Governments come and go. But we need the communities to become conscious and demand these issues are dealt with.” These local measures make sense. But Mexico’s federal government could also go after the Tenancingo padrotes harder. There’s a lot of public anger about the crime and in 2007, Mexico’s Congress approved a tough federal law against human trafficking. A problem is that Mexican police use the conflation of human trafficking with all prostitution to go after easy targets. Cops can raid strip clubs and round up sex workers in red light zones en masse, sometimes to extract bribes, rather than doing the difficult investigations to save the real victims. The issue of the broader sex trade is complex. But it’s important to focus on the clear-cut cases of the most abhorrent sex slavery. If you collected strong evidence on the prostitution of girls who are under 18 and of those who suffer clearly violent coercion, Mexican federal agents could smash the padrotes of Tenancingo with the same force they have taken down certain cartel kingpins. CrashOut is a reader-supported newsletter, which means I work like a nutcase to bring you these stories because I love it - and some of you stars make it happen. To get the new stories and give support, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Photos 1 and 6 are from TV report Mexico City Vice, by Ioan Grillo and John Dickie 2009, other photos are by Ioan Grillo 2023 Copyright Ioan Grillo and CrashOut Media 2023 ReplyShare3 replies by Ioan Grillo and others17 more comments...TopLatestDiscussionsNo posts CrashOut a reader supported newsletter It\u2019s told there is a ritual among the pimps of Tenancingo that when a son is born his umbilical cord is displayed for a month under the moonlight while his penis is left unwashed More pertinently, U.S. courts have convicted more than fifty Tenancingo men for trafficking women and underage girls to sell for sex in the United States, especially New York City. Others are still at large and the town produces a startlingly high proportion of ICE\u2019s most-wanted sex traffickers At a 2022 sentencing hearing in New York, a victim identified as Delia confronted her abuser Francisco Mel\u00E9ndez P\u00E9rez I hope that you go to hell because that is where you put me,\u201D she told him in front of the court I ask the court to give Francisco Mel\u00E9ndez P\u00E9rez the harshest sentence possible for what he did to me and to the other victims.\u201D (He got 25 years) It\u2019s a vital issue that I will follow in this newsletter which focuses on organized crime and drugs in which people willingly pay \u201Ccoyotes\u201D to take them north The Walled City The name Tenancingo comes from the indigenous Nahuatl tongue and roughly means \u201Cimportant fortress,\u201D but is commonly translated as \u201Cwalled city.\u201D People in the state of Tlaxcala spoke the same language as the Aztecs but they famously allied with the Spanish against them Various TV crews including Fox News and CNN have gone to investigate Tenancingo\u2019s sex trade and been threatened and chased out of the city Tenancingo contrasts with Mexico\u2019s hardcore narco towns such as La Tuna Much has been made of \u201Cmansions\u201D the sex trade has built. But the ostentatious dwellings are more like large houses with walls and pillars that stand out in a poor area yet are a long way from the homes of the super rich. Claims the traffic brings a billion dollars annually to the town, repeated in Wikipedia, are surely vastly exaggerated. Still, Mu\u00F1oz says, the padrotes are big players in a small town with power and status that youngsters look up to. In 2010, sociology students from Tlaxcala\u2019s state university conducted a questionnaire in Tenancingo schools, asking boys directly if they wanted to be padrotes. A full 26 percent said yes. While that is a loaded question, it\u2019s still alarming. Mu\u00F1oz says the figure of 10 percent working in the sex trade is difficult to prove but could well be true. In addition to padrotes, there are drivers, look outs, money launderers, cooks, messengers and others keeping the racket going. The money from the violent exploitation of its victims is divided among many hands. Local anthropologist Oscar Montiel studied the growth of the Tenancingo padrotes, tracing it to the 1970s when industrial development and new roads took men to work in Mexico City where they learned about the sex trade. But the harsh treatment of women also echoes older rural practices such as \u201Crobbing brides.\u201D The padrotes have developed a modus operandi of traveling to towns in poor Mexican states such as Puebla, Veracruz and Chiapas, and finding vulnerable girls. They flash their cars and jewellery and seduce them. In some cases, they spend months grooming them but in others it\u2019s only days. The Tenancingo padrotes utilize La Merced in Mexico City as a base for their prostitution. It\u2019s a sprawling marketplace in the historic center with canvas-covered stalls next to dilapidated buildings, and rows of trendy sneakers close to smelly heaps of osyters and piles of garbage. Scantily-clad women line up by a fence opposite a row of shops, looking into their cellphones and holding up umbrellas. The drivers and padrotes divide the money but the girls make next to nothing. \u201CThey just give them food and a place to live. That is why they are slaves.\u201D So what is the scale of this \u201Cmodern day slavery\u201D its clandestine nature means we can\u2019t be sure The annual report of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) says they rescued 765 victims of human trafficking in 2022 There are of course many victims that aren\u2019t rescued. Still, HSI appears to put a lot of resources and agents into fighting this crime, as it should. Victims are also recruited inside the United States itself. But even taking this into account, it looks more likely there are thousands rather than hundreds of thousands of victims on U.S. soil. Yet the crime does continue, and the padrotes wouldn\u2019t do it unless they kept making money. For it to be stamped out then policing would need to be more effective still. A big part of the problem lies in Tlaxcala. The padrotes have influence at a town and state level, likely buying off police and other officials. The human rights defender Mu\u00F1oz says that between 2017 and 2022, Tlaxcala investigators opened 52 files on padrotes, but only one has led to a prison sentence. Three things are needed to smash the trade, Mu\u00F1oz argues: more prevention work teaching girls to avoid the padrotes; better support for victims; and stronger prosecutions. People need to exert pressure to make these things happen, he says. \u201CGovernments come and go. But we need the communities to become conscious and demand these issues are dealt with.\u201D These local measures make sense. But Mexico\u2019s federal government could also go after the Tenancingo padrotes harder. There\u2019s a lot of public anger about the crime and in 2007, Mexico\u2019s Congress approved a tough federal law against human trafficking. The issue of the broader sex trade is complex. But it\u2019s important to focus on the clear-cut cases of the most abhorrent sex slavery. If you collected strong evidence on the prostitution of girls who are under 18 and of those who suffer clearly violent coercion, Mexican federal agents could smash the padrotes of Tenancingo with the same force they have taken down certain cartel kingpins. A Fox News reporter was asked by police to leave Tenancingo while working on a sex-trafficking story “for the safety of the town.” Veteran war correspondent Lara Logan and her team traveled to the town known as the Mecca of human trafficking with two U.S Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) agents last October to film for a new Fox Nation series Lara Logan Has No Agenda While traveling through the center of Tenancingo HSI special agent Thomas Countermine tells Logan that there is no town “quite like this” in terms of the number of sex workers sent to the United States probably thousands of women have come from Tenancingo” to New York They sent money back and basically built this town are there scouts tracking us as we move through the town?” Logan asks the HSI agent “That’s what it appears,” Countermine responds Logan says that “here in Tenancingo they don’t like outsiders what’s normal for the people who live here is unimaginable for most – an entire town built on sex trafficking.” a municipal police truck pulls up beside the vehicle in which the reporter and the HSI agents are traveling As a Mexico City-based agent identified only as Gus speaks to a police officer Countermine warns Logan that “if they see you filming them Another police truck pulls up to block their path after which Logan says in a voiceover that “the police are guardians of the traffickers and their secrets moving in to force us out; a veiled threat.” Gus then reports that “we’ve been asked to depart the area,” adding that “about a week ago they did lynch a couple of people that were here just asking around about the town.” He also says the police officer told him that there are people “down the street and up the street “The policeman told you they lynched some people here?” Logan asks and he’s asked me to calmly leave the area,” Gus responds “For our own safety?” probes the South African reporter Fox News reported that Tenancingo police escorted Logan and her team to the outskirts of the town located 15 kilometers north of Puebla city “where the situation escalated further requiring Gus to immediately get them far away from Tenancingo.” Logan said that speaking to the media can even be dangerous for people involved in the sex-trafficking trade “One of the pimps from Tenancingo who we interviewed he had to meet us in a nearby town because he was afraid that his family would kill him if he was talking to us So that’s the kind of people you’re talking about,” she said Sex trafficking began in Tenancingo around the middle of the last century after working age-men returned to the town from neighboring states to find few opportunities beyond badly paid factory jobs Source: Fox News (en)  ADVERTISE WITH MND COMMUNITY GUIDELINES Subscription FAQ's Privacy Policy Mexico News Daily - Property of Tavana LLC “With proposals from both regional designers and designers from other parts of the world the competition brought forth a large variety of approaches to an extremely sensitive societal problem” Arch Out Loud said in a statement “Being the first architectural competition to address human and sex trafficking Arch Out Loud hopes that the culmination of this exploration is only the beginning of the field’s examination of its’ role in the matter.” A post shared by arch out loud (@architecturecompetition) on Jun 7, 2017 at 6:47am PDT The various mediascapes reveal how architecture plays one of the most important background roles to the shaping of society and culture – Arch Out Loud. Read on for images and summaries from the winning proposal and four runners up below: Participants: Paweł Kuczyński, Mikołaj Cierlak, Wojciech Losa (Politechnika Śląska) Courtesy of Arch Out LoudDue to that fact we can adapt program to variety of needs grid is virtual space division - which expands and shrinks as we are shaping space with urban furniture Nonetheless all of specified functions can be fruitfully introduced without sacrificing existing local context Education is straightforward connected with interaction; the fact that we interact with people around the world gives us an alternative view The function of the marketplace is going to be divided by grid stands can be organized between them and heads of poles may carry lightweight material shading Events such as carnivals where the square should be able to accommodate big amounts of people are not going to be restricted by volumetric architecture Participants: Nikolaj Salaj, Tin Troha, Žan Šabeder (Fakulteta Za Arhitekturo Ljubljana) Courtesy of Arch Out LoudFrom the Architects: Why erect a static structure when the building process is far moretransformative and engaging in itself A continuously changing environ­ment induces an equally constant transformation in its society as well A minimal addition creates countless new scenarios in a space left mostly untouched This superposition of ready-mades integrates into its new context by housing and complementing its exist­ing programmes but remains subversive and transformative through its omnipresent mediascape elements The constant presence is extended to the entire city by the crane itself Participants: Roberto Rosales, Barbara González Miranda Courtesy of Arch Out LoudFrom the Architects: Sex trafficking is based in human objectification We believe that in order to stop this abuse we need to engage both victims and felons and confront them in a way that celebrates the human aspects of the survivors by empowering them and starting a healing process We created a program that reactivates community life with green and recreational areas The lampposts that cover the entirety of the plaza serve also as sensors that capture the surrounding noise and regulate messages displaying in the pavilion’s façade This phrases are delivered by those affected by exploitation giving them back their humanity Participants: Soohyoun Nam, Hyejin Lee, Kyungjo Choi Courtesy of Arch Out LoudFrom the Architects: An Apparatus to integrate Place of Trafficking and that of Community: In a sad region where acceptance and commitment of human trafficking prevails restoring sense of community in every space is the key The breaking of everydayness of vice begins with subversion of ‘business’ area where the unfortunate events occur and the safe space of community and family By forming a coexisting condition of the two separate places one will realize the irrationality of respecting family on one hand we propose a media-wall that works in tandem with surveillance cameras News via: Arch Out Loud Korean Demilitarized Zone Underground Bathhouse Competition Winners Announced Architectural research initiative arch out loud has announced the winners of its DMZ Underground Bathhouse international open ideas competition The brief challenged participants to create an underground bathhouse within the Korean Demilitarized Zone responding to long-running geopolitical tensions between North and South Korea Winners Announced for Competition to Design a House Under the Hollywood Sign Architectural research initiative arch out loud in partnership with Last House on Mulholland (LHOM) has released the winner of their competition to design a house of the future to be sited directly below the Hollywood Sign You'll now receive updates based on what you follow Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors If you have done all of this and still can't find the email Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 10 most wanted list pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges of sex trafficking a woman for more than eight years Paulino Ramirez-Granados was one of 12 members of the Granados family arrested in the small Mexican town of Tenancingo and then indicted in New York on sex trafficking charges While 12 members of one family involved in sex trafficking might seem like a lot anywhere else In the small town 80 miles from Mexico City 8-year-old boys playing in the streets aren’t shy about their future aspirations: “I want to be a pimp,” one proudly told a reporter “Many kids aspire to be traffickers,” Emilio Munoz Berruecos Berruecos grew up in the next village and runs a local human rights center “This is a phenomenon that goes back half a century.” According to several documentaries produced by different media outlets, the town’s entire political structure and police force have been implicated in human trafficking The area has an estimated annual worth of $1 billion and most of the income has direct ties to the international sex trade The town also is home to organized crime operations that thrive with little police intervention While many Mexican states have passed laws making human trafficking a crime victims’ families didn’t have an official way to report trafficking in Tenancingo there have been 120 complaints and 24 arrests without a single conviction only 17 pimps throughout Mexico were convicted of human trafficking National advocacy groups have known about Tenancingo for years “Boys are groomed to become pimps from a young age,” Bradley Myles, CEO of anti-trafficking organization Polaris He went on to say the sex trafficking cases from Tenancingo are “some of the most heartbreaking and shocking cases we’ve learned about.” The streets fill with carousers while men costumed as pimps “It’s multi-generational,” Lori Cohen, a lawyer for Sanctuary for Families told the New York Daily News Girls as young as 12 and 13 often are tricked into coming to Tenancingo by young men pretending to be suitors Through a family network such as the Granados’ or bright green stand several stories in the air adorned with massive finials shaped like angels Women are held inside these “security houses” where some say they were repeatedly raped the kids are kept in the town for leverage after they are dispatched to red-light districts across Mexico and the United States A female victim in the New York case testified Ramirez-Granados threatened to harm her children if she did not comply. During the course of this recent investigation, police rescued more than 20 additional victims—all Mexican nationals. Other survivors from Tenancingo recounted being forced to see up to 60 men a day—charging $35 each in 15 minute increments. Fusion reported pimps trafficking just three women in Queens The money made from the sale of these children gets wired back to Tenancingo where mansions with lavish courtyards line the streets a stricter anti-trafficking bill has been passed but not signed into law Mexican lawmaker Rosi Orozco hopes the tougher standards will deter trafficking “We are witnessing more attention being paid to human trafficking by the public than ever before This level of momentum from concerned citizens can truly have an impact in dismantling the human trafficking networks present in our communities.” Ramirez-Granados will serve a minimum mandatory sentence of 15 years but could face life in prison If you enjoyed this article and would like to support WORLD's brand of Biblically sound journalism, click here Gaye is a World Journalism Institute graduate and a former WORLD correspondent An actual newsletter worth subscribing to instead of just a collection of links Please wait while we load the latest comments.. Please register, subscribe, or log in to comment on this article. © 1986-2025 WORLD NEWS GROUP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. In the impoverished town of Tenancingo in central Mexico, a sinister trade has taken root: entire extended families exploit desperation and lure hundreds of unsuspecting young Mexican women to the United States to force them into prostitution. Those who know the pimps of Tlaxcala state — victims, prosecutors, social workers and researchers — say the men from Tenancingo have honed their methods over at least three generations. They play on all that is good in their victims — love of family, love of husband, love of children — to force young women into near-bondage in the United States. The town provided the perfect petri dish for forced prostitution. A heavily Indian area, it combines long-standing traditions of forced marriage or "bride kidnapping," with machismo, grinding poverty and an early wave of industrialization in the 1890s that later went bust, leaving a displaced population that would roam, looking for elusive work. Added to that, says anthropologist Oscar Montiel — who has interviewed the pimps about their work — is a tradition of informal, sworn-to-silence male groups. He believes that, in the town of just over 10,000, there may be as many as 3,000 people directly involved the 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. A pimp Montiel identified only by his unprintable nickname said his uncle got him started in the business and that he has since passed the techniques on to his brother and two sons. Federico Pohls, who runs a center that tries to help victims, says established pimps will sometimes bankroll young men who aspire to the profession but lack the clothes, money and cars to impress young women. Dilcya Garcia, a Mexico City prosecutor who did anti-trafficking work in Tenancingo, confirms that many boys in the town aspire to be pimps. "If you ask some boys, and we have done this, 'Hey what do you want to be when you grow up?' They reply: 'I want to have a lot of sisters and a lot of daughters to make lots of money.'" The Tenancingo pimps troll bus stations, parks, stores and high schools in poverty-stricken areas of Mexico, according to prosecutors who have raided their operations in Mexico City — often the "proving ground" where women are tried out as prostitutes before being moved to the U.S. The pimps use a combination of threats, mistreatment, unkept promises of marriage and jobs, that send their victims on a slippery slope that usually ends in the filthy alleys near Mexico City's La Merced marketplace or at a cheap apartment in metro Atlanta. There, the women are isolated and sometimes forced to service dozens of male clients a day. Garcia, who has dealt extensively with the victims, says some pimps even show up with fake "parents" to convince women they are serious about commitment. "The way they fish for their victims is very cruel, very Machiavellian, but very effective," said Garcia. "When somebody is isolated, or unprotected, they are the perfect victim." A young victim who agreed to speak to The Associated Press fit that profile perfectly. She asked not to be identified because she fears retaliation from her pimp's family. Miguel Rugerio was charming and sweet when she met him in her impoverished hometown in the gulf coast state of Tabasco, she said. He wooed her with sweet words and promises — good jobs in the U.S. for both of them with lots of money to send home to build a house in Mexico for their future. He wanted to meet her parents — a sure sign of a serious relationship in Mexico — and said he wanted to marry her. But after he got her to Tenancingo he quickly changed. When the girl, just 17 at the time, wanted to go home for her sister's 15th birthday, he said no. "I thought he was joking, and he said he wasn't joking, that I couldn't go home," she said. "I told him I would escape, and he said he would find me and make a scene in my hometown." "He told me that because I was his woman I had to stay with him," she said. He finally said she could go home for a day for her sister's party but that if she didn't come right back, he'd hurt her family. When she returned to him after the party, he and his family started to mistreat her — abusing her, humiliating her and making her do all the housework. A few weeks later, he brought her to Mexico City and forced her to work as a prostitute. "He told me that if I didn't do it, he was going to hurt my sister and my family," she said. "I was very afraid of him." A typical scenario, prosecutors say, involves an elaborate sham of a marriage — sometimes with false papers and names — before the pimp feigns a sudden financial crisis that would put the couple out in the street. The pimp then casually mentions a friend whose wife "worked" them out of the problem, noting, "If you love me, you'd do that for me." Garcia tells of an 18-year-old woman who was picked up by a Tenancingo pimp; her 1½-year-old baby girl was placed in the care of one of his female relatives, and the woman was then taken to a down-at-the-heels Mexico City hotel and made to serve dozens of clients per day, for around 165 pesos ($12) apiece. When she resisted, the pimp told her, "If you don't do what I'm asking you to, you'll never see your daughter. You'll see what we'll do to your daughter." Mostly, the pimps concentrate on isolating women, lying to them, and breaking down their self-esteem. The victim who spoke to the AP described it this way: Her pimp, Rugerio, humiliated her, pulled her hair, withheld food and told her that she had to practice sex acts on him so she would perform well with the clients. "I didn't like it," she said. "I felt ugly and it was very painful." Rugerio told her he would send her to the U.S. and that he'd join her a bit later. After walking through the desert, she was sent to a nondescript apartment complex in suburban Atlanta, where she was met by two women and a man who, she was told, were related to Rugerio. One of the women took her shopping for clothes. Even though it was September and starting to get chilly, the woman selected mostly short, tight skirts and tops and told her she'd have to start working the next day. "I asked them what kind of work I would be doing," the young victim said. "She took out a bag of condoms and then I knew." Her minders kept her in a small, sparsely furnished apartment, isolated from any other girls and mostly ignored her during the day. Around 4 p.m., a driver would come pick her up to take her to work. In the beginning, she had sex with between five and 10 men a night, but as time went on the number got as high as 40 or 50, mostly Latino men. "I felt like the worst woman in the world," she said, her voice cracking and tears welling up in her eyes during an interview with the AP three years later. "I felt that if my family found out, they would be so disappointed because of what I was doing." She thought about escaping many times, she said, but she was afraid because Rugerio had told her that if she left, the police would arrest her and toss her in jail. She also didn't know anyone, didn't have any money and didn't know where to go. Miraculously, one night, when she got into the car that came to take her to work, a woman from her hometown was inside. She said she had been prostituted by a relative of her pimp but that the driver had helped her escape and they would help her escape too. With the help of the driver, she got away and eventually wound up testifying against her former pimp. The 28-year-old Rugerio was sentenced in February to five years in federal prison in the U.S. for helping smuggle young women from Mexico to Atlanta and forcing them into prostitution. "We've always suspected the problem is larger than we know about," said Brock Nicholson, deputy special agent in charge of the Atlanta division of the federal Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "Oftentimes, victims are very reluctant to come forward." Those arrested on suspicion of forced prostitution almost never admit it. Of three suspected pimps captured in raids on Mexico City hotels whose testimony the AP gained access to, all denied the charges against them; they said they were merely guests or employees of the hotel. And while some in Tenancingo will admit pimps do operate there — resident Josue Reyes says "a few people have given the town a bad name" — others are seemingly in denial, despite the inexplicably luxurious houses that crowd the otherwise dusty, impoverished town. The three-story homes with elaborate ironwork and Greek-inspired cornices are "safe houses" used by the pimps to awe — and then confine — their victims, said Federico Pohls, a human rights activist who works with victims. Not so, says Maximino Ramirez, the secretary of the Tenancingo town council. The structures were "built on hard work," he said, pointing to his own compound of three houses. Indeed, he said, all the palatial homes were built with money sent home by migrants working in restaurants and other businesses in the United States. "In this day and age, in the 21st century, are you going to tell me that a woman of 18 or 20 can be tricked?" he asked. "Maybe they went into (prostitution) of their own free will, and then after a while, they say: You know what? They forced me to." In 2008, a group of sociologists asked 877 residents of Tlaxcala if they knew of any place where human trafficking was occurring; 132 mentioned Tenancingo and an adjoining village — about 10 times more than any other locality. How can such a trade flourish without police interference? Bautista, the Mexico City prosecutor, says it would be impossible without corruption. Tlaxcala police say it is difficult to catch such crimes at their point of origin, because the full gravity of the crime has not yet been realized, even by the victims, when they are in Tenancingo. Some are held or mistreated, but usually by men they believe to be their husbands. Most have not yet been prostituted. State prosecutors' spokeswoman Judith Soriana says only about a half dozen people have been prosecuted under laws against human trafficking in the last couple of years. She denies it's a particular problem in the state, saying "it has been blown out of proportion." "There is nothing that indicates it is particularly high in this area," Soriana said. "Pimping isn't a problem exclusive to this state, it happens everywhere in the world." Dedicated to providing opportunities for designers to explore contemporary sociopolitical issues, arch out loud is now hosting the first international architecture competition addressing the global epidemic of human trafficking. Invisible and incomprehensible to most, the issues of modern day slavery are real and widespread. The Polaris Project, a leading organization in the battle against human trafficking, reports nearly 20.9 million victims worldwide fueling an obscene, yet lucrative, multi-billion dollar Industry. Courtesy of Arch Out LoudHuman trafficking denies basic freedoms and degrades life to mere commodification. In source communities, such as Tenancingo Municipality, Mexico, human trafficking has become industry, sustaining both the wealth of its citizens and international networks of illegal human exchange. Positioning itself in such a context, arch out loud seeks to investigate architecture’s capacity to challenge entrenched exploitation. Human Trafficking: Tenancingo Square Mediascape challenges designers to reimagine the town square of Tenancingo, Mexico in response to the prevalent issues of sex trafficking existing in the area. Designers should explore the catalytic potentials of architectural intervention, inciting positive change through the introduction of a transformative mediascape. The proposed conversion should aim to both educate and empower, influencing a long-term recalibration of consciousness. Courtesy of Arch Out LoudLocated at Tenancingo’s highest and most central point the competition site lies adjacent to the church (Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel) and local government office A prominent intersection within the community the existing square accommodates a number of temporary programs and events serving as both a public plaza and marketplace briefly exposing an extensive and sophisticated network of traffickers Designers should consider the provocative potentials of media the juxtaposition of square and scape to accommodate a variety of relational conditions while also promoting a singular image of change How might a modified square reshape communal mindset and motivation reconstituting the image of a town where exploitation has become normalized We encourage all designers to consider engaging this issue by registering now at www.archoutloud.com OVERALL WINNER - $5,000 + AO feature and certificate 3 Runners up - $1,000 each + AO feature and certificate 10 Honorable Mentions - AO feature and certificate Directors Choice - AO feature and certificate MOS Architects | Columbia University Tatiana Bilbao - Founder Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO César Guerrero - Partner XTU ArchitectsNicolas Desmazières - Founder Knowlton School OSU Kathrin Susanna Gimmel - Partner Advanced Registration: Feb 20 - Mar 18 Early Registration: Mar 19 - Apr 17 Regular Registration: Apr 18 - May 14 Submission Deadline: May 15 Contact arch out loud at info@archoutloud.com  This competition was submitted by an ArchDaily user. If you'd like to submit a competition, call for submissions or other architectural 'opportunity' please use our "Submit a Competition" form The views expressed in announcements submitted by ArchDaily users do not necessarily reflect the views of ArchDaily Nineteen people are dead and at least 30 injured after a bus left the highway and struck a house in southern México state Friday morning the vehicles’s brakes failed while traveling on the Joquicingo-Malinalco highway near the community of El Guarda in Joquicingo The 49 passengers aboard were on a pilgrimage from Michoacán to Chalmo in the state of México Ten ambulances were being dispatched from Toluca Civil Protection said two helicopters were on hand to aid with medical evacuations With reports from Milenio His friend assured him that his contact in the US would pay for his transport and give him a passport and a well-paid job just as many others in the same position would Francisco fell into the hands of a people-trafficking ring He was taken to an unknown location near the Mexico-US border stripped of his possessions and forced to work at gunpoint dismantling stolen cars for no pay with barely any food and suffering terrible violence Francisco fell prey to the vast criminal network that controls modern-day slavery in Central America, a business so big it is estimated to be the third-largest illegal economy across the region, behind drugs and counterfeiting (pdf) a deadly combination of mass undocumented migration and the breakdown of law and order are proving fertile ground for a thriving and increasingly unbreakable trade in people "We are a region in which migration is a part of the mental landscape, where leaving the country for work always is, and always has been, an option," says Ana Hidalgo, regional counter-trafficking project manager at the International Organisation for Migration responds to the laws of economics worldwide to the supply and demand in the labour market … and it is amid these uncontrollable forces that the trafficker appears." Asahac estimates that more than half of Central American migrants trying to cross into the US fall into the hands of trafficking or smuggling rings In the past decade, Central America has become one of the most dangerous regions in the world. Mexico's widely reported drug war has left about 70,000 people dead. Honduras has a murder rate of 86 per 100,000 inhabitants – San Pedro Sula is the most dangerous city in the world This rise in violence has been attributed largely to the growing power of drug cartels who are expanding their business from trafficking drugs to trafficking people Costa Rica's deputy minister of interior and police Because a dose of drugs can be bought and consumed only once but the same human being can be exploited in many forms over and over again throughout a lifetime," says Chacón In 2010, 72 Central Americans were found murdered in northern Mexico allegedly by the hands of the Zetas cartel The Mexican army recently rescued 165 people who had been travelling as undocumented migrants when they were kidnapped by a drug cartel near the US border In a report on Latin America and the Caribbean (pdf) last year, the UN Office of Drugs and Crime warned that human trafficking was likely to become an increasingly lucrative revenue stream for Central America's drug cartels Teresa Ulloa, director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean says her organisation believes that Mexican drug cartels made $10bn last year from the enforced sexual exploitation and slavery of thousands of girls and women "The Latin American convention remains that women are to be used for men's pleasure This means that if they can't access our bodies through force creating a demand for women and girls," says Ulloa "If we could create policy on human trafficking that has gender equality at its core While governments across Central America have revised anti-trafficking legislation in recent years they continue to be outpaced and outgunned by the increasing power of the cartels in controlling people trafficking across the region "[Cartels] are organisations that have no limits," says Hidalgo "They have amassed such power that they bend and violate the rules with reliable impunity … and also they have millions [of dollars] in resources." "It's easy to see how they can remain one step ahead of any police especially in these countries where police forces usually lack resources and have to follow many bureaucratic steps and rules excluded people here but we wouldn't have slaves." is if people like Francisco are made aware of the real dangers they face "People need to familiarise themselves with these stories the stories of other people who are just like them," she adds "because it could happen to anyone." Every year thousands of women are forced into prostitution and traded from Mexico to the United States The BBC investigates the sex trafficking business which makes some men very wealthy at the expense of vulnerable young women Warning: Viewers may find some of the video content disturbing Tenancingo is a Mexican town built on sex trafficking - with little alternative employment Young women from across Mexico are duped into becoming sex slaves by wealthy men living in grand homes the women discover too late they're being sold into prostitution One Mexican charity estimates there are 1,000 traffickers in Tenancingo "Maria" was 17-years-old when she was lured to Mexico with promises of a new life Instead she was forced into prostitution and sold from one bar to another or exploited in border towns and tourist resorts The Mexican Congress has plans to crack down on trafficking; those accused will be jailed during trial and victims guaranteed anonymity Corruption among Mexican officials at state level has hampered prosecutions in the past Many trafficking victims are taken to New York where they often work gruelling shifts of 10 hours or more only leaving the building when their pimp moves them to a new location Other women are advertised on "chica cards" Customers call the number on the card and women are delivered by car to a customer's house or hotel room frequently assaulted by their pimps and customers The US has a federal anti-trafficking law and New York state has its own tough penalties Women who co-operate in trafficking investigations can receive special visas allowing them to work legally But convicting pimps is still difficult as many of their victims are too terrified to give evidence against them.Reducing the demand for prostitution is seen as one key to ending sex trafficking the district attorney's office runs a controversial programme to treat men convicted of using prostitutes Called "John School" the men are taught that the women they are soliciting may be the victims of a sex trafficking operation At least one person is killed and several others are injured after a tornado roared through the city of Tulsa in the US state of Oklahoma.