Students play a game of human trafficking-themed snakes and ladders at a high school in San Luis Teolocholco, Tlaxcala in Mexico, February 13, One boy stepped on a panel that read: 'Sexual relations should never be forced'. A female classmate took a ladder away from a square warning men against becoming human traffickers. This was not an normal lesson but a unique workshop designed to prevent boys from becoming sex traffickers and stop girls from falling prey in Tlaxcala state, which has become synonymous with the crime after more than a decade of high-profile cases. Some of the pupils' families are known to traffic women for a living, to other states and also the United States, and often encourage their children to one day join the family business. Mexico is an origin, transit and destination country for human trafficking.

But this only scratches the surface. Thousands of women and girls from Mexico are forced into an underground sex economy in both Mexico and the United States. Traffickers can be powerful criminal networks or individuals, like employers, romantic partners, or coyotes. Some victims may be trafficked by their own families. The women are often economically vulnerable and recruited through false promises of jobs, love, and a better life in the United States.

Three out of four girls trafficked in the region were married at a young age, mostly before age 16, according to Mexican and U. Human trafficking is believed to be the fastest-growing criminal industry in Mexico, and three-quarters of its victims are sexually exploited women and girls, according to Women United Against Trafficking, an activist group. Under a anti-trafficking law, those convicted of the crime can spend up to 30 years in prison. Nevertheless, nearly , people are believed to be enslaved in Mexico, according to the Global Slavery Index published by rights group Walk Free Foundation. The researchers interviewed women working in the sex industry in the Mexican cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, both along the border with the United States.