'Prayers for the Stolen': When Mexican Drug Cartels Expand Into Sex Trafficking Hack
go to original March 9, 2016

Listen: Popular writer Jennifer Clement says she sees "no way out" for the little girls targeted by drug and sex traffickers in her country unless there is serious action from outside Mexico. (The World Today)

Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement Check it out on Amazon.com

When the black SUVs roll through town, Ladydi and her friends burrow into holes in their backyards like animals, tucked safely out of sight.

This is from the novel Prayers for the Stolen - set in the mountains of Guerrero, a part of Mexico where the drug lords are kings, and the girls hide to avoid being kidnapped and sold.

"This is an ugly parlour not a beauty parlour," says one character, a hairdresser. "I have to make little girls look like boys, I have to make the older girls look plain, and I have to make pretty girls look ugly."

Author Jennifer Clement, who is also current president of the worldwide association of writers, PEN International, spoke with Hack about the 10 years of research that went into her latest novel - research that saw her venturing into the cartel badlands.

It's a novel about cartels that have expanded their business beyond drugs.

...Prayers for the Stolen is a work of fiction, though it has the kind of gritty detail and careful research normally associated with journalism and non-fiction.

It began with a chance conversation - Jennifer had been interviewing the women of drug traffickers, and learning how girls kidnapped in Mexico are taken to ranches close to the US border. There they are sold and then trafficked into the US to be sex workers.

She met a woman from Guerrero and asked how things were. The women explained families dug holes in which to hide their daughters, in case the narcos spotted them.

"Once I heard the story they were digging holes in the ground and when the parents saw these SUVs coming they would hide these girls in the ground. That was the image that gave birth to the novel."

Find out more about Prayers for the Stolen here

Read the rest at Hack

Related: Mexico Police Rescue 87 Women Forced to Work as Prostitutes (Associated Press)

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