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| Karla Jacinto |
Surfing through the net i came across this story i couldnt help but to share about about a lay who had been raped 43,200 times.According to the report by Vanguard, Karla Jacinto is sitting in a serene garden. She looks at
the ordinary sights of flowers and can hear people beyond the garden walls,
walking and talking.
She looks straight into my eyes, her voice cracking
slightly, as she tells me the number she wants me to remember — 43,200.
By her own estimate, 43,200 is the number of times she was
raped after falling into the hands of human traffickers.
She says up to 30 men a day, seven days a week, for the best
part of four years — 43,200.
Karla Jacinto
Karla Jacinto
Her story highlights the brutal realities of human
trafficking in Mexico and the United States, an underworld that has destroyed
the lives of tens of thousands of Mexican girls like Karla.
Human trafficking has become a trade so lucrative and
prevalent, that it knows no borders and links towns in central Mexico with
cities like Atlanta and New York.
U.S. and Mexican officials both point to a town in central
Mexico that, for years, has been a major source of human trafficking rings and
a place where victims are taken before being eventually forced into
prostitution. The town is called Tenancingo.
Even though it has a population of about 13,000, Susan
Coppedge, the U.S. State Department’s Ambassador at Large to Combat Human
trafficking, says it has an oversized reputation when it comes to prostitution
and pimping.
“That’s what the town does. That is their industry,”
Coppedge says. “And yet in smaller, rural communities, the young girls don’t
have any idea that this is what the town’s reputation is, so they are not
suspicious of the men who come from there. They think they have got a great
future with this person. They think they love and it is the same story of
recruitment every time.”
Mistreated from the age of five
Karla says she was abused for as long as she can remember
and felt rejected by her mother. “I came from a dysfunctional family. I was
sexually abused and mistreated from the age of
five by a relative,’ she says.
When she was 12, she was targeted by a trafficker who lured
her away using kind words and a fast car.
She says she was waiting for some friends near a subway
station in Mexico City, when a little boy selling sweets came up to her,
telling her somebody was sending her a piece of candy as a gift.
Five minutes later, Karla says, an older man was talking to
her, telling her that he was a used car salesman.
The initial awkwardness disappeared as soon as the man
started telling her that he was also abused as a boy. He was also very
affectionate and quite a gentleman, she says.
They exchanged phone numbers and when he called a week
later, Karla says she got excited. He asked her to go on a trip to nearby
Puebla with him and dazzled her by showing up driving a bright red Firebird
Trans Am.
“When I saw the car I couldn’t believe it. I was very
impressed by such a big car. It was exciting for me. He asked me to get in the
car to go places,” she says.
‘Red flags’ were everywhere
It didn’t take long for the man, who, at 22, was 10 years
older than Karla, to convince her to leave with him, especially after Karla’s
mother didn’t open the door one night when she came home a little too late.
“The following day I left with him. I lived with him for
three months during which he treated me very well. He loved on me, he bought me
clothes, gave me attention, bought me shoes, flowers, chocolates, everything
was beautiful,” Karla says.
But there were red flags everywhere also.
Karla says her boyfriend would leave her by herself for a
week in their apartment. His cousins would show up with new girls every week.
When she finally mustered the courage to ask what business they were in, he
told her the truth. “They’re pimps,” he said.
“A few days later he started telling me everything I had to
do; the positions, how much I need to charge, the things I had to do with the
client and for how long, how I was to treat them and how I had to talk to them
so that they would give me more money,” Karla says.
Four years of hell
It was the beginning of four years of hell. The first time
she was forced to work as a prostitute, she was taken to Guadalajara, one of
Mexico’s largest cities.
“I started at 10 a.m. and finished at midnight. We were in
Guadalajara for a week. Do the math. Twenty per day for a week. Some men would
laugh at me because I was crying. I had to close my eyes so that I wouldn’t see
what they were doing to me, so that I wouldn’t feel anything,” Karla says.
There would be several other cities. She would be sent to
brothels, roadside motels, streets known for prostitution and even homes. There
were no holidays or days off, and, after the first few days, she was made to
see at least 30 customers a day, seven days a week.
Karla tells how she was attacked by her trafficker after a
John gave her a hickey. “He started beating me with a chain in all of my body.
He punched me with his fists, he kicked me, pulled my hair, spit at me in the
face, and that day was when he also burned me with the iron. I told him I
wanted to leave and he was accusing me of falling in love with a customer. He
told me I like being a whore.”
And then came a child…
One day, when she was working at a hotel known for
prostitution, police showed up. They kicked out of all of the customers, Karla
says, and shut down the hotel. She thought it was her lucky day — a police
operation to rescue her and the other girls. Her relief turned quickly to
horror when the officers, about 30, she says, took the girls to several rooms
and started shooting video of them in compromising positions. The girls were
told the videos would be sent to their families if they didn’t do everything
they asked.
“I thought they were disgusting. They knew we were minors.
We were not even developed. We had sad faces. There were girls who were only 10
years old. There were girls who were crying. They told the officers they were
minors and nobody paid attention,” Karla says. She was 13 years old at the
time.
In her nightmare world, even a pregnancy was cause for
horror not joy.
Karla gave birth at 15 to a girl — a baby fathered by the
pimp who would use the daughter to tighten the noose around her neck: if she
didn’t fulfill his every wish, he would either harm or kill the baby.
He took the baby away from her a month after the baby was
born, and she was not allowed to see her again until the girl was more than a
year old. Karla Jacinto was finally rescued in 2008 during an anti-trafficking
operation in Mexico City.
Her ordeal lasted four very long and tormenting years. She
was still a minor, only 16, when it ended — but she has endured a lifetime of
horror that will stay with her as long as she lives.
CNN independently verified portions of Karla’s story. We
have spoken with the United Against Human Trafficking group she was referred to
after being rescued, and to senior officials at Road to Home, a shelter where
Karla lived for one year after her rescue. Due to the clandestine nature of the
human trafficking business, corroborating everything Karla told us is not
possible.
Source: CNN
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