Disappearance is an extreme form of violence against women. For families it is a pain that does not stop and a relentless search, which mothers especially assume.
Araceli Salcedo has been searching for her daughter Fernanda Rubí for 14 years. The young woman was 21 years old when she was kidnapped by an armed gang from a bar in Veracruz. Araceli has fought against indifference and intimidation on a path that she shares with many searching mothers and that led her to found the Collective of Families of Missing Persons Orizaba-Córdoba.
Cases like this are multiplying in Mexico and other Latin American countries, which “continues to be one of the regions with the highest levels of violence against women,” says Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for UN Human Rights, consulted by DW.
“Women and girls disproportionately disappear in environments marked by povertycommunity violence, migration, structural racism and intersectional discrimination, which particularly affects adolescents, indigenous women, Afro-descendants and migrants,” he emphasizes.
In Mexico, although there are more missing men, in recent years there has been a significant increase in girls and women victims. From 2024 to 2025 there was a general increase in female cases in all states and in nine of them they increased by more than 20 percent, according to Crimson Lupa, of the Mexican Institute of Human Rights. In the state of Tabasco they went from 236 to 1,761, this is an increase of 87 percent. The majority of these cases, 21 percent, are concentrated between 15 and 19 years old.
Along the same lines, a joint study by the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), the organization IDHEAS Strategic Litigation in Human Rights and the Mexican Forensic Anthropology Team (EMAF), warns of a greater increase since 2007 and that “in several states of the Republic The number of missing women is today higher than the number of missing men“Between January 2018 and September 2024 there were 11,566 female victims in the State of Mexico alone.
While men who disappear are mainly destined for forced labor for illegal activities, “the exploitation of missing women and girls serves in many cases for the purposes of sexual trafficking (forced prostitution),” the study postulates.
Connection between disappearances and trafficking
“Although not all disappearances are linked to human trafficking, regional evidence in Latin America shows a persistent relationship between disappearances and trafficking networks, especially for the purposes of sexual exploitation, in contexts of organized crime, social inequality and institutional weakness,” Hurtado highlights. “Disappearance and trafficking are not isolated phenomena, but part of structural patterns of gender violence,” adds the UN Human Rights spokesperson.
Peru is experiencing a crisis of great proportions: “Between 2023 and 2025, more than 45,000 reports of missing people were registered in the country. Those found are a little more than a thousand. However, it is not determined whether it is due to trafficking and sexual exploitation or other factors,” Rossina Guerrero, executive director of the Center for the Promotion and Defense of Sexual and Reproductive Rights (Promsex), tells DW.
Of the 3,797 victims of human trafficking from 2017 to 2023, 85.4 percent were women and 35.9 percent were minors, according to the Citizen Security Observatory of Peru. 59.9 percent were victims of sexual exploitation and 73.2 percent were recruited through a false job offer.
However, the connection between disappearances and trafficking is still an underestimated issue, Guerrero believes. Promsex has investigated this crisis in the regions of Madre de Dios, Piura and Lima. In its study, it reveals that six out of ten victims of disappearance are women, as well as almost nine out of ten victims of human trafficking. Its executive director speaks of coincidental patterns between both crimes. However, they are treated as isolated phenomena by State agencies and are not a priority in public policies, he warns.
Victims of human trafficking and sex trafficking networks
According to the 2025 Report on Human Trafficking of the Citizen Council for Security and Justice of Mexico City, “women and girls are the main victims, representing approximately 62 percent of the victims in these crimes. Sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and forced marriage are the most common forms of trafficking for this group.”
Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, legal director of IDHEAS, in Mexico, points to “a brutal cultural, social and economic environment against women.” In this regard, “we must take into account the context of extreme violence in the home. In many cases they flee because they are victims of violence in their partner or family.or sexual assault in their surroundings,” he tells DW. In this situation, added to poverty and lack of opportunities, “they are easily hooked by trafficking groups for sexual exploitation, which are mainly on social networks, near schools and on video game platforms,” he adds.
“In other cases, They are directly kidnapped and forced to perform work, including sexual work, under threats and violence.“, indicates the IDHEAS report. Behind it there would be mafias or organized groups, which may be related to drug trafficking cartels or even with relatives or acquaintances. Sometimes they turn women and girls into partners of gang members or end up as sexual slaves.
Vulnerability and under-registration
The same patterns are repeated in different Latin American countries. For every trafficking victim identified, the Inter-American Development Bank, IDB, estimates that there are at least 20 others undetected.
In the region, the majority of detected human trafficking victims are women and girls, according to 2022 figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODCUNODC), 82 percent in Central America and the Caribbean and 62 percent in South America. Likewise, the significant form of trafficking is sexual exploitation (81 percent in Central America and the Caribbean and 64 percent in South America), which registers almost entirely female victims.
“We want to make visible that there is a pattern: there are impoverished women, girls and adolescents, who are victims of violence at home, who seek job opportunities from an early age and that makes recruitment much easier and faster. It cannot be that the State does not see it,” says Guerrero. The director of Promsex points to the “institutional tolerance and normalization at the level of authorities” in the face of violence against women, as well as the lack of reaction and immediate activation of protocols in the face of disappearance.
This also has to do with prejudice, he accuses: “They say that he is going to return, that he has gone with his lover or to a party and they burden the family with the search.” To this is added the difficulty of entering isolated territories, sometimes under the domination of drug trafficking and with a high level of danger, which also complicates the work of civil society organizations.
Gender focus
“The lack of immediate searches, the absence of a gender perspective and the poor coordination between registration systems favor impunity,” says Hurtado. “The lack of integrated data makes victims invisible and limits the formulation of effective public policies,” maintains the UN Human Rights spokesperson, in a region where “serious failures persist in prevention, search, investigation and reparation.”
In the context of structural violence and violence against women in Latin America, migrant women are especially vulnerablewarn various organizations. The rescue in Mexico in 2024 of a group of 25 women of different nationalities – including Venezuelans, Colombians and Cubans – victims of sex trafficking was a warning sign.
“It has to do with a pattern of discrimination and sexualization of migrant women,” says Gutiérrez, who emphasizes the need to carry out campaigns in consulates and embassies, so that young women do not believe in false promises of modeling or work that end up in human trafficking networks: “It is a very delicate and very serious issue. Advice must be reinforced, as well as action protocols for a quick and effective search.”
The experts consulted agree on the importance of a comprehensive approach with a gender perspective. Prevention of violence in the home, education in schools and coordinated action without delay by institutions are key to stopping this crisis.
The gender approach is essential for prevention and intervention in cases of trafficking in persons and missing women, taking into account the vulnerabilities of women, especially in situations of migration, rurality and poverty.
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