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Over a three-year period, in all of Mexico's 32 states, through their local attorney general and prosecutor departments, a total of 1,458 investigations were launched in relation to human trafficking allegations, only 27% of total reported cases. Of these investigations, only 18% of the cases resulted in prison sentences being handed down. In other words, only 108 people were sent to prison by state prosecutors on human trafficking charges over this three-year period.
Similarly, the Federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) launched a mere 571 investigations on human trafficking allegations, or 15.9% of total cases, and only 1.9% of these investigations resulted in prison sentences.
As part of its update of the figures in the Diagnostic on the Situation for Human Rights in Mexico, the National Human Rights Commission reported that from June 2012 to June 2015 in addition to Mexican citizens, victims included people from the U.S., Honduras, Colombia, Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela, as well as other countries.
A source at the Human Rights Commission noted that the states that conducted the most investigations during this period were Puebla, with 375 investigations, Chiapas with 315, Mexico City with 113, Oaxaca with 118 and Baja California Norte and the State of Mexico with 95 each, which represents 76% of total cases investigated in the country at the state level.
“In all of these cases, the only state where most investigations led to prison sentences being handed down was Mexico City; in contrast, Chiapas reported only 16 prison sentences, Baja California 8, the State of Mexico 3, Puebla 24 and none in Oaxaca,” our source continued.
“The National Human Rights Commission is preparing a report with quantitative and qualitative information that will include information on how human traffickers were captured, the specialized units in charge of investigating human trafficking in states, training provided to officials, areas with the highest rates of occurrences, how officials address victims, and obstacles faced by local authorities in implementing the pertinent laws,” our source concluded.
