A human trafficking victim, Karla Jacinto, has revealed how she was forced to sleep with at least, 30 men daily for over four years as a teenager.
Human trafficking victim, Karla Jacinto
A human trafficking victim who was r*ped “43,000 times” as a teenager now travels the world as a passionate human rights activist helping other young women escape this global pandemic of modern day slavery.
Karla Jacinto, who already had been s*xually abused at 5-years-old by a relative, was r*ped 30 times a day, seven days a week from the age of 12 to 16.
She was first lured by a trafficker who promised gifts and a better lifestyle, and who also sympathised with her by telling her he had also been abused as a child. He later convinced her to leave her family who had disowned her.
“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 told CNN.
Young Mexican women and minors are prostituted and treated as sexual slaves in the southern border of Mexico.(Photo: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images)
“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.”
Disaster broke when he then started telling her to service clients on a regular basis, how she had to treat and talk to them to get more money.
She then became a prostitute in Guadalajara, Mexico’s largest city. By her own estimate, 43,200 is the number of times she was r*ped 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.
The 24-year-old Mexican said she was eventually rescued in 2008 as part of an anti-trafficking operation in Mexico City.
Pope Francis talks with Karla Jacinto (left) during the Modern Slavery and Climate Change conference at the Vatican on 21 July 2015. (Photo: Reuters/Tony Gentile)
She recounted her past, showing photos of herself at the age of 12, saying, “I was first targeted at the age of 12 by a trafficker who prized me away from my dysfunctional family with gifts and money.
“I was eventually taken to Guadalajara, one of Mexico’s biggest cities, and forced to work as a prostitute.
“They would beat me with sticks, they would beat me with cables, they would beat me with chains. They forced me into prostitution at age 12.
“There were people who would laugh at me because I was crying. I had to close my eyes so I wouldn’t see what they were doing to me.
“Some of my attackers were uniformed police officers as well as judges, priests and pastors. I thought they were disgusting. They knew we were minors; we were not even developed. We had sad faces.”
She now travels the globe helping other women to recover from being trafficked and even met Pope Francis to raise awareness of the pandemic affecting her home city where an estimated 20,000 women fall prey to traffickers, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
Credits: IB Times / CNN
