Human Trafficking

How Did I Get Here? Content note: This page addresses sexual exploitation, trafficking, and violence. How Did I Get Here? is rooted in Ciudad Juárez, a border city where migration, stigma, and organized violence intersect. The photographs were made in and around La Zona de La Paz in my hometown of Juárez, Mexico, a district that reflects the border's contradictions. It is a place where aspiration and survival exist alongside systems that profit from vulnerability. This series requires clarity. Consensual adult sex work is not the same as human trafficking or the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Adult sex work, when chosen, exists within economic constraint and social stigma, yet those who engage in it deserve to be represented with dignity, not judgment. Trafficking is something else. It is coercion, control, and violence. When children and teens are recruited, abducted, sold, or forced into commercial sex, it is abuse. It is not labor. It is not consent. Many of the women I met were not from Juárez. They arrived from other regions of Mexico, hoping to cross into the United States. Some came with families. Some were separated. Some were abandoned. Some were taken. For many, exploitation began before adulthood. Turning eighteen does not erase a childhood shaped by violence. A person trafficked as a child remains a survivor of sexual slavery throughout their life. Age does not convert exploitation into consent. Returning to Juárez over time, I witnessed how the body records inequality. I saw the effects of untreated trauma, addiction, lack of healthcare, and the absence of rehabilitation. I also witnessed loss. Women killed. Women missing. Lives made precarious by systems that normalize disappearance. These photographs were made through trust and return. They are a collaboration between the women who allowed me into their lives and me. I recognize that I have access and mobility that many of them do not. My role is not to rescue, but to represent with responsibility, without spectacle, without confusion, and with care. How Did I Get Here? insists on visibility with accountability. It honors the dignity of adults while naming trafficking and childhood sexual exploitation as crimes that do not end with time. Why Language Matters This work is intentional in its use of language because the stakes are real. Adults who choose sex work may still face stigma and violence, but their agency must not be erased. Children and teens who are exploited in commercial sex are victims of trafficking and abuse, not sex workers. Precision is part of dignity. It is also part of accountability.