A health worker is escorted by soldiers as she arrives to the Sports Center with a cooler containing doses of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V in the Xochimilco borough of Mexico City, Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 8:07 AM PT – Monday, March 1, 2021
Human rights groups have warned thousands of Mexicans are turning to the sex industry due to economic desolation caused by COVID-19 lockdowns.
“Because of hunger and necessity, and not having any savings or income to eat or pay rent, all that pushed me back after 10 years to return to work as a sex worker,” stated an unidentified Mexican national.
According to reports, the Mexican economy has experienced a rise in unemployment and poverty, in turn, forcing thousands of men and women into sex work.
Human rights activists have stressed that economic lockdowns violate people’s right to work and provide for themselves.
“And the new ones, which are the other 40 percent, they would cry because they would say, ‘I don’t want to do this but I must bring food for my children,’” explained Elvira Madrid, director of Brigada Callejera (Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women). “The other 20 percent that shocked us even more were housewives.”
We are going to see a tremendous increase in drug trafficking, we are going to see an increase in human trafficking, and we are going to see these people caught and released into our communities here in the United States.https://t.co/rLB4VMbSQk
— Senator Bill Hagerty (@SenatorHagerty) February 25, 2021
According to economists, coronavirus lockdowns in Mexico gave a boost to illegal businesses such as drugs and human trafficking while legal sources of income were shut down for many citizens.
