Human Trafficking Victim Tells Her Story

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

Carla Jacinto, who was a victim of human trafficking, opened her heart in the program Don Francisco invites you (Telemundo) where, in addition to serving as an example of survival, she urged other young women not to fall into the same traps as she did. The young Mexican woman who has visited Pope Francis to share his message has also given her testimony in the US Congress and is now a spokesperson against human trafficking.

Presenting the case of the young woman in his show, Don Francisco explained that Jacinto was abused since she was a child in her home and at 12 years old she left her house in love with a man 10 years older than her. "From the age of five [I was abused by] a very close person," Jacinto said of the abuse she suffered as a child without revealing the name of her abuser. "I never talk about it because it is something that marks the beginning of everything I lived through."

And she added about the man who took her from her house: “I fell in love. She offered me what I didn't have in my house. When he has everything built he says to me: 'You know what? You have to work'. At that time he told me that he had to work in the sex service, in a brothel. The first time they took me to Guadalajara it was an ordeal because I never thought that the person who supposedly loved me was going to make each person use me as an object”.

Her partner was also violent, she said. "She hit me every day. It almost killed me,”said Jacinto, who added that the man threatened to kill his family if she ran away. "Can you imagine the image of how they are going to kill your mother if you don't? That was what kept me there for so long.”

José Víctor, 62, one of the clients of that place, paid her only to talk and motivated her to change her life, she said. "That was the guardian angel I needed," he said. “You believe in absolutely nothing. You see a future that you will always be like a slave there, with chains that cannot be seen”. Victor, he assures, motivated her to flee. "He started telling me that I was worth a woman."

According to Jacinto, giving birth to her daughter made her want another future. "A son is the most important thing you can have in life, in whatever situation he comes from," admitted the young woman, who fled her assailant and took refuge in the home of a relative. And what happened to your executioner? "He is not in prison. We have been free for nine years now because he has many contacts.”

Jacinto is currently dedicated to raising awareness about sexual exploitation and human trafficking. “My work today is prevention, with those young people, those children who need to soak up this issue. I have been invited to different countries with different authorities,”he said. “It is educating the police, the police, but above all, parents and children from elementary, middle, high school and universities. At 12 years old, nobody told me what human trafficking was. They did not explain to me how a person can make you fall in love and then keep you kidnapped there for so long.”