The Town Where Boys Are 'Groomed To Become Pimps'

Rosa was only 17 years old when she was approached in her small hometown in Mexico by a man claiming to sell clothing. Instead, he began courting her and she quickly fell in love with him.

Showered with affection, Rosa went with the man to another town in Mexico called Tenancingo, where he introduced her to his family. Showing her the stunning homes around the town, he promised she could one day have her own if she traveled to the United States with him to work. She agreed, and when Rosa turned 18, they left for New York City.

When Rosa (whose name has been changed to protect her identity), arrived in the United States, however, her situation rapidly changed. She learned that the job she was promised never existed. Instead, her "boyfriend" forced her into prostitution.

Rosa was just 18, but she was now selling sex against her will in brothels throughout New York and New Jersey, unable to leave the room she was in for weeks at a time.

Tenancingo is a town with a foundation built on exploitation. Powerful networks of traffickers operate out of the region, where boys are groomed to become pimps from a young age. Women and girls are forced to sell sex on the streets, in residential brothels, online, and in cantinas across the United States and Mexico. They and their families are threatened through violence, deception, and intimidation. These women and girls are trapped in modern slavery, enslaved by criminal networks that have perfected human trafficking and exploitation into a sophisticated science over decades.

The depth and breadth of the modern slavery that is intricately woven throughout our global society is both shocking and daunting. In fact, the International Labor Organization estimates that 4.5 million people are victims of sex trafficking around the world in an industry that generates tens of billions of dollars in criminal profits each year.

But this is a fight we can win. Instead of becoming discouraged by the number of sex and labor trafficking cases, we are more hopeful than ever.

The shocking stories of sex trafficking coming out of Tenancingo should greatly impact us, but it's important to remember that we all can play a role in keeping this from happening to more people.

CNN