I know this is an unusual, and possibly uncomfortable question, but here it goes anyways:
I have read that a significant portion of the girls at various clubs in TJ, including Hong Kong, are victims of human trafficking by the cartels.
From what I have read, Narcos come into various Mexican villages and take girls by force into cities like TJ to serve in these clubs. Other stories say these girls are there to pay off coyotes who take relatives across the border, etc
I really want to visit Tijuana - it’s an actual dream of mine - and I have made my peace, morally speaking, with being a monger. But I can only do so with the understanding that it’s an exchange between two consenting adults.
So I was hoping for some insights from other more experienced TJ Visitors: are the girls there against their will? Are they victims and would I be contributing towards their life of misery?
This is a genuine question- I am not trying to “confront” anyone .
Replies (46)Latest
A reasonable question. I too would love some advice on how to detect and prevent human trafficking but I would add three caveats: 1). don't forget that trafficking occurs in all kinds of labor intensive industries such as agricultural workers, 2) how do you separate the workers who are truly consenting and possibly even enjoying their work from those who are being exploited? and 3) what steps can a "consumer" take that will effectively reduce human trafficking or help the victim of human trafficking, be it a dancer at a strip club or a farm worker who picked the produce you are purchasing at the grocery store.
I often wonder what would happen if sex work was legalized and regulated, like many other types of work that have safety and wage guidelines. Would it reduce the risk of trafficking? Of course, this would require effective and honest government regulation. of the sex work industry..... that may be an unrealistic expectation.
Anyone notice that while human trafficking is used for sensational news purposes, no one actually ever gets arrested and charged with the crime. Human trafficking has been used twice within the past 20 years to go after Providence strip club and if I recall one dancer, underage, was found in one club (cheaters)m and she had been trafficked all the way from Revere Mass. Interesting note. I had represented her pimp 14 years earlier. For what? Deriving earnings from a prostitute. Burn in hell Troy.
@skibum609 I’m surprised you think and voice the opinion that no one gets charged with human trafficking without researching that position. A simple google search brings up pages and pages of cases and convictions. I mean hundreds of examples.
As a director of an NGO whose mandate is prevention of trafficking and care of victims I need to emphasize trafficking happens everywhere but it’s most prevalent in the dim areas of society. That makes the victim afraid to report to authorities since they are complicit in committing crimes themselves, although usually under duress.
In the case asked about by the OP, since sex work in the Zona isn’t illegal, if there is coercion by the cartels it most likely involves simple extortion, but I think that is rarely if ever the case. I believe most of the girls arrive at and work at the brothels in TJ simply because of the lust for easy money. Simple human greed. Greed being the cornerstone of American society, I can deal with and even appreciate that.
There are 350 million people in this country so hundreds and hundreds is meaningless in that context. Of all the things wrong on earth, this one means little to me.
A few hundred cases is the charged/convicted numbers, not the instances. Best estimates are there are several hundred thousand cases in this country and a few million worldwide. Just because it hasn’t touched you personally doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Nice show of empathy though, but then you are a lawyer. From the sounds of it possibly even a personal injury lawyer.
I've only been to the TJ clubs once. From what the bar girls told me, the bars control them by threatening to fire them, not by threatening them with violence. The clubs take a much bigger cut of their money than the better clubs in the US take. I asked one if she wouldn't do better working out on the street. She said you can't do that without a pimp, so it's much worse.
I'm not interested in going back, because it's depressing to be around people who only have a fraction of the opportunities they'd have in the US. But, if you can stay frosty about it, being a TJ bar girl probably changes life for the better by a bigger multiplier, compared to a woman in the US being an extras stripper.
Yes, there are cartel-run brothels with sex slaves, mostly in Mexico, but also in the US. But, while TJ bar girls have low rates by US standards, they have high rates for Mexico. Part of what you get for paying that higher rate is being with someone who's motivated by the chance to be in the Mexican middle class.
Too bad Ronjax isn't still around, as he would have an intelligent and informed take on this. I am no expert, but have some thoughts.
One is that the poverty people are facing in some places is almost as motivating as being abducted. Real hunger for them and their families.
Two is that when cops in the USA throw around the term "human trafficking" for simple acts of prostitution, it detracts from the problem of women who are truly abducted. I mean don't charge Robert Kraft with "trafficking" for getting oral sex at an AMP.
Three, a worldwide problem is all the criminals have to do is confiscate a woman's passport, and as far as all governments are concerned, she ceases to exist. That is just egregious, and no one cares.
Four, the Mexican cartels commit mass executions all the time. Don't put anything past them. They would have no problem with trafficking women.
And lastly, organized crime has been and probably still is involved in strip clubs in the USA. That is who has the influence to get city ordinances changed. So we have all contributed to their coffers.
We would like to think the women we visit are OK with their situation. We don't know. Although, I have felt pretty confident that the US citizens that were native speakers of English and seemed like they were in a good place mentally were in control of their own lives. But that kind of entertainer is disappearing, aren't they?
A lot of prostitutes are human and “trafficked” by their pimps. So yeah, if you’re paying for sex with some young girl you know nothing about in Tijuana, Chinatown in Philly or some brothel in Europe, you may be involved in human trafficking. Scary name, same old (the oldest, actually) thing.
Well if you go to the clubs enough, you trade What's App contact information with the chicas you get to know. You see their families and vacations. Most likely the nice vacation spots are from other clients taking them to out of the club destinations. I also gotten close to a small group of mongers who frequently take chicas they get to know to outside the club dates and vacations. Some even go to their apartments and these chicas also have multiple clients taking them on trips throughout the years.
From my perspective and my group of mongers, these chicas are looking for solutions to after the club whether it be business, marriage, real job etc.
All these interactions and deep discussions gives me significant confidence there is no human trafficking at clubs like HK, BT and Chicago. The others I cannot speak to.
Lastly I do hang out for dinner or go drinking with a few of the staff at the hotel and/or club every trip. We have talked about some weird and bad stuff. Although I never specially talked about trafficking admittedly the worst stuff was not in that area but more with the individuals. I am also confident the topic would have been discussed if this was remotely true. Again, to be clear, I'm only talking about the 3 bigger clubs.
“ All these interactions and deep discussions gives me significant confidence there is no human trafficking at clubs like HK, BT and Chicago. The others I cannot speak to. “
@justinyoo - I agree👌🏻Yes, there may very well be strict rules to follow for these bar chicas or else get fired at clubs like HK, BT, CC and also LGB, but human-trafficking…nah.
I don't know and have never been to TJ, but it seems like most human trafficking busts I hear about in the states are AMPs. They promise the girls work if they come over here then confiscate their passports. Which is why, even in my mongering days, I never patronized them.
I am not a persona; injury lawyer like scumbag Benjamin Crump. Best estimates = a fucking lie. Empathy roflmao. Virtue signaling is wretched.
@skibum609 Crump's a racial ambulance chaser who licks his chops whenever a white person kills a black person (which much rarer than the reverse). He's Al Fucking Sharpton with a JD.
^Could not agree more on the comparison.
"Just because it hasn’t touched you personally doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist."
How many of these Internet debates would just peacably end if people could just accept this?
@wallanon if that was the case why would we need discussion groups - they are here so we can learn and possibly educate.
@wallanon - logically this doesn't make sense in that you must assume it happens if it doesn't....meaning there could never be a scenario something doesn't happen simply because you didn't experience it.
@justinyoo Those two things you put together don't actually fit together. Accepting that something could have happened is not assuming that it happened. It was just a comment on the countless posts I've read here from seemingly intelligent people dismissing the possibility of a situation existing simply because it does not align with their lived in experience.
@623 Discussion groups could be for discussions. A lot of what goes on around here is just people debating in circles. Not so different than any other Internet forum, except for people seem to find joy in getting awkwardly personal on TUSCL in attempting to make their points.
To catch a few of you up I’m going to write my first article in 20 years on this board about human trafficking in the USA. I hope you all read it when it’s posted. From reading this thread it is clear that many of you don’t have any idea what goes on in big cities in this country. Most trafficked Americans in this country are under 16 and runaways. Our group has rescued girls (and many boys by the way) as young as 9 years old.
Trafficking is not always for sex, sometimes drug running or other illegal activity and rarely if ever management sanctioned in strip clubs because it’s almost always underage victims. The clubs don’t want that kind of heat, even in Mexico.
Watch for my article if you want to learn more.
@623 One of my favs, before she turned 18, moved in with a friend of hers, who was living with her stepfather. My favs parents, from what she told me, were very self-absorbed, but not abusive in a legal sense. Her and her friend basically saw the stepfather's house as a place where they could live rent free, and live as wildly as they wished.
Another fav had a friend who lived with a pedophile from the time she was 14. From what my fav said, her friend saw the pedophile as a largely positive parental figure.
Many millions of minors are exploited and/or neglected to varying degrees Either while living with family, or as runaways or throwaways. I don't think we have anything resembling reliable stats. It's been a problem from prehistory. If you go back a hundred years, it was certainly much worse then than now. The harm to families from the decline of manufacturing work after the 50s in the US may have made the problem worse.
First of all there is no 'consensual exchange' in a system built on trafficking. If you're going to do this, be real and just own the reality of the industry below the border.
Those aren't like some polished US clubs near a college town or casino; full of baby strippers and social media influencers. This is Tijuana. Cartel territory. On the outside it seems like brazzers but behind the scenes it's more sicario.
Hence the term 'PL' in the strip club / brothel community. It's rampant, and anyone who actually goes to those spots knows what it is. They just don't care.
@IvanB It's exaggerated to think the cartels run everything in Mexico. There are places in rural areas where the criminal gangs have complete control. But in a big city like TJ (3rd largest in Mexico), it's more like how organized crime in the US pays off people in law enforcement. One of the bar girls told me there's a special unit of the TJ police, that protects trafficked women trying to escape traffickers. She had a high opinion of them. I asked her if they protect women who want to work on the street without a pimp, but she said no, only women who want to get out of sex work. I think the people who run the HK-level clubs know they'd lose a lot of customers, if they tried to manage the bar girls purely with sticks and no carrots. And they know they'd have trouble with the government too, for doing that.
Illinois is a blue state, but the rural parts are red. Black strippers there have told me they are wary of stopping for gas in the middle of nowhere, especially at night. There's only so much central governments can do to control rural places. It's not something unique to Mexico. What's unique is the profitability of the drug business, relative to the resources of a corrupt government in a poorer country. But corruption has it's degrees. In both the US and Mexico, there are cops who'd take a payoff from a drug dealer to look the other way, but they'd still go after that dealer for hurting someone who wasn't willingly involved in the drug business.
@IvanB - I think people who go down and meet the people (girls and staff) are keeping it real understanding with the relationships and discussions about the realities. The realities which isn't aligned to what you are saying is usually more about sending money especially to dancers and waiters with a child or two. They come from all over the country and then go home for a week or two, so if you want to hang out with a friend, you have to make sure they are in town. The high turnover rate of dancers who start out and don't like the environment and leave doesn't support your reality either if they are forced. I know a two dancer friends in different clubs who worked with their sisters and the sisters quit because it wasn't for them. So running into them at the club I ask how the sister is doing and they will show you pictures and share stories. I only bring this example up to share my reality.
I'm curious of the dancers you trade contact numbers, what percentage of dancers you think are being forced to work in TJ? If you don't talk with the people at work and outside of work, then what to do mean "be real and just own the reality below the border"?
@justinyoo Your analysis is spot on. To be honest, this is a great discussion, lots of guys are making good points here. Personally, I don’t get the sense that human trafficking is going on in the Zona Norte’s Big Three: HK, BT, and CC. The ladies I’ve met and gotten WhatsApp contacts from, I never got an impression they were being forced to work there. In fact, several of them were not planning to make careers of working at a brothel; I know a few that have dreams of owning their own businesses in the future and the money they make off arribas is going towards their savings.
I do agree with you and @PAFBABS, I can’t say for sure that there isn’t trafficking going on in the smaller clubs - I really have no idea. I will say this though: if there was trafficking at HK, BT, and CC, I would think the Mexican government would have all of them shut down. The fact they’re still open tells me that the vast majority of the girls want to work there, they’re not being forced or pimped. And remember, sex work is legal in Mexico.
It’s so hard to know. I think most do it to make money but there may be more involved with some. I do think those who try to label all prostitution sex trafficing have dine a great disservice to those who actually are victims though because it’s hard to take seriously when the term is so commonly misused.
Wow, great discussion. I get all the 9th Circuit Appeals decisions that involve "prostitution" and almost all are those convicted of under aged pimping or sex trafficking and I have never seen a case where the Defendant won on appeal. The evidence that there is real "sex trafficking"
The Appeals cases goi into all the detail that seems very solid.
ON THE OTHER HAND... all the raids it seems in the US use the excuse of sex trafficking as the excuse. Probabably 90% are consenting adults other than the frequent underaged stings in Phoenix.
A female cop places ads online. She uses certain phrases that imply kind of hint. But the real "gotcha" is usually see asks the client that contacts here something like, can you on your way pick up some cigs for me since I'm too young! He bites and the sting team (usually at hotel in next room) busts in and its usually an easy conviction for child prostituition.
A few years ago the head of a major public company from Colorado was busted knowing (forget how) that she was 17. (as I recall)... was years ago. He thought no problem since the age of consent i believe was 16 or less in CO. When I looked it up AZ was only of about 8 states with an age 18 consent age. It is/was lower in most states.
When I was in Toronto (Where I often go for a week at a time for over 20 years to beat the Phoenix summer heat. I had an agency companion visit me at my hotel. We have no idea how but she was stopped by Peal Regional PD in my hotel parking lot. Have no idea who they knew she was a companion. There only question was if she was a consenting adult. Yes, she convinced PD and no problem.
After Canada's old law (criminal only Federal ) in one if the longest Superior Court Opinion which was a female judge she attacked all the friend of court briefs by mostly US (sexwork is always abuse and no woman in their right mind would choose it). The Court struck down and was later upheld by the Canadian Supreme Court declaring that the law about "bawdy houses" (Incalls) and "Living of the Avils " (agencies) violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Canada based on the safety of persons provisions.
The view was that being illegal made it more risky, unsafe so was struck down.
The the conservative Parliament passed the "Nordic Model" making it only illegal for customers. Immediately the police depts in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto issued press releases basically saying their would be no change in enforcement i.e. if consenting adults not waste police resources on vs real crimes of real trafficking, or underaged.
The results in its very safe in these cities with huge agencies (many run by female former escorts) most have their own drivers for outcalls etc.
BTW under the prior law outcalls were always legal just not incalls/agencies called bawdy houses/ living of the avials.
“ I really want to visit Tijuana - it’s an actual dream of mine - and I have made my peace, morally speaking, with being a monger. “
☝🏻NWorth - Just go with your gut instinct without overthinking unnecessarily and make your dream come true - have FUN mongering in TJ and you won’t regret it ( LOL… you might even get hooked to the FUN afterwards ). In my years of clubbing out in TJ ( past and present/ ITC and OTC ) ALL the chicas I’ve encountered have been in either for some extra cash ( then returning back to their hometowns ) or else simply for FUN/partying ( at their discretion and NOT human trafficking ) while they are still in their prime young/gorgeous. So, try it out for yourself - I am sure you’ll love it👍🏻
Maybe the worst thing about the TJ clubs is I don't see how a bar girl could limit her alcohol consumption if she wanted to. I realize US strippers lose money with some customers by turning down drinks. But I think the bar girls have to meet a ficha quota, no matter how many arribas they sell. And even if the PL was OK with her pouring her drink into the ice bucket, the waiters would probably rat her out for doing it. It seems like that's why they have way too many waiters, because ratting out the bar girls is as much their job as serving drinks.
It's a problem in Mexico in general. They're still old school. It's common you're expected to drink heavily with co-workers, or when making deals with other companies, outside of official working hours.
@boomer79 - to me it seems really easy to know. When you go, you trade WhatsApp numbers. You have contacts with a bunch of nice people both dancers and staff. You see their updates when they go home and vacations all year long.
They also message as say they are going home, vacation or coming back to TJ.
I knew of one girl, she would go home right at the beginning of the month because of her "red friend" and stay at home for a few weeks with her son and family. She would message photos of her kids in school plays, Mexican dance festivals, etc Then when you talk with them about their futures and families. They are from different areas and have different scenarios so it is interesting. Some want to start a business, some want to get married to help raise their kid, some have no plan besides to stay in the club for another year to collect money.
Like others have mentioned like @623, these are not underage girls who are the primary victims. ZN big clubs have strict rules about age, health checks, scheduling and even being from Mexico. Most are mid 20s to young 30s.
When you go drinking or to the restaurant with staff, theother staff and dancers will join just to sit to hang to talk (not trying to solicit) and they are all talking about stuff you wouldn't consider if you were "trafficked". They talk about the economy, family, sports, things that happened in the clubs just like us (bad and funny). You get to see the likes, dislikes and biases as well.
I almost don't have anymore to add because if those who don't have encounters with the people there (even just in the clubs) and still say it happens, it simply is a narrative they believe in without experiencing it.
Seems to me that most want to be there and enjoy most encounters.
Want to end human trafficking into the United States? End all immigration for a period of 10 years and remove all illegals. Yup, too tough so do nothing but whine. Very progressive.
The charges that got Amelia's closed down were human trafficking related. Some say they were politically derived against the owner, and not true.
Can the woman decide to take an extended vacation, cut back hours and work one or two days a week or leave the business altogether anytime she wants?
If the answer is no she’s being trafficked.
@Studme53 At your job can you decide to cut your hours, work only when you feel like it or take a several months long vacation when ever you want and still keep your job AND continue to get paid the same? By your definition, all workers of the world are being trafficked.
I've been chasing whores for almost 50 years. Jumbo's bar on third street in detroit was the main hooker bar in town in the 1980's and 90's. I knew the girls, the drivers, and the customers. The girls weren't being trafficked, no one knew where to find trafficked girls. The blind pig, Andy Coon's, that was open from 2am to 7am (the hours real bars were closed) had anything you could want in terms of drugs, booze, and girls, but they didn't have any trafficked girls. I don't believe the hype we hear about human trafficking.
The girls are on Instagram taking expensive vacations and posting to Instagram all the stuff they are buying. They fly back home and threw an airport. They are not being trafficked. Also half the girls are on coke and the other girls hate the ones that do drugs.
If you notice 25,% of the girls have implants that they buy themselves to compete against the other girls. That would be unnecessary if they were all Cartel employees
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