Mexican sex slave tricked into prostitution by a 'Prince Charming'
A young mother tricked into prostitution by her 'Prince Charming' boyfriend and kept as a sex worker for ten years has revealed how she was raped 40,000 times, earning her pimp $1.2million from selling her body. Alejandra Rodriguez, bravely spoke to MailOnline to warn other trafficked women how she was raped 60 times a day.
She revealed how one customer was raping her while he held a revolver in her mouth and she begged him to pull the trigger to put an end to her misery.
Alejandra's nightmare began when she was 19 and she fell in love with a man called Francisco, who after eight days, told her he loved her and wanted to marry her.
Francisco persuaded her to come and live with his parents in Tenancingo, Mexico, and, believing they had a future together, she agreed.
But it was a trick. Once at his parents' house, he changed and she was locked inside all day - and not allowed to leave.
It set in motion wheels that would leave her as a sex slave where her pimp took her from city to city in Mexico and the US for sex.
Alejandra is one of thousands of girls tricked into prostitution in Tenancingo, the small town in Mexico where the big houses with shiny cars parked outside are all paid for by human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Alejandra bravely recalled the moment she bit onto the end of the gun and asked the man who had paid her pimp $30 for sex to blow her brains out.
In her first interview since she escaped two years ago, Alejandra said: 'I was beaten severely for having spoken to a client instead of silently obeying. But it didn't stop me wanting to die.'
The man was Alejandra's 55th client of the day at the brothel in Atlanta, Georgia, where she was held prisoner.
She was 19 when she first met Francisco, who was good looking and five years her senior from the village of Tenancingo, 50 miles east of Mexico City.
'He was a master seducer,' she continued, 'he made me feel beautiful and I trusted him completely.'
After just eight days, she agreed to leave her childhood home and move with Francisco to Tenancingo.
'I was completely in love with Francisco and I believed he loved me. It was only later when I saw him using the same techniques to seduce other victims that I knew it was an act.'
Arriving in Tenancingo, Alejandra found herself living in the family home, a high-security mansion with 24-hour vigilance.
'It was just Francisco, his mother and his father. They were very polite to me, but I wasn't allowed to leave the house and they would never tell me the reason why.'
Soon Francisco and his parents put pressure on Alejandra to prostitute herself. He made false promises of presents and money for her family, and after a month Alejandra gave in.
'I said I would try it, but by saying yes, I condemned myself to hell.'
She was taken to a guarded hotel room in the Mexican city of Puebla, 10 miles from Tenancingo, and forced to work from 10pm to 10am, at first seeing as many as 20 clients a night.
'On my first night there I tried to escape, but Francisco beat me harshly and forced me back into the room with the next client.
'I had only ever had sex with two boys, but over my first two months in Puebla I was raped more than 1,200 times.'
Alejandra's time in Puebla is a typical technique of the Tenancingo pimps, training their victims to 'kill their feelings' and 'think of their bodies as a commodity to be sold'.
'Francisco would rape me and tell me that I was useless, that I was good for nothing more than selling my body to whoever would pay.'
After two months 'training' in Puebla, Francisco took Alejandra to the U.S., crossing the Arizona border illegally during a dangerous five-day walk across the Sonora Desert.
Soon she found herself a prisoner in a house owned by Francisco's family in Atlanta, Georgia.
'There was a girl from the Dominican Republic in the house when I first arrived, but I was never allowed to speak to her,' she said.
'The other girl was eventually murdered after too many escape attempts. The final straw came when the Dominican tried to bite a client's nose off. Francisco shot her in the head.
'There were days that I would have to attend to as many as 60 clients a day. I estimate that in three years I was raped more than 40,000 times, which means that Francisco made more than a million dollars selling my body in the U.S.'
Francisco would charge $30 per client throughout Alejandra's 14-hour working day, but she never saw a cent of the money.
According to the U.S. Department of Defence, human trafficking is the world's fastest growing criminal industry, with over 20million victims worldwide.
The Tenancingo syndicate is estimated to be responsible for over 60 per cent of sex trafficking within North America. Of the 32 sex traffickers arrested last year by the New York branch of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 26 were from the small Mexican town.
Alejandra was only allowed to return to Mexico when she became pregnant with Francisco's child, after three years in Georgia.
The child, once born, was taken straight to Tenancingo to be raised by Francisco's family, while Alejandra was sent to work all over Mexico.
Over seven years, she was taken to brothels and hotel rooms in every major town and tourist resort in the country, before arriving in La Merced, Mexico City's infamous kerb-crawling district.
But the age of 29, Alejandra was 'burned out after 10 years of living hell'. She decided to escape, fleeing to Mexico City's bus terminal in the hope of returning home.
But when she arrived at the bus terminal, to her horror she spotted Francisco searching for her.
'I prayed to God that he wouldn't see me getting onto the bus. I was so terrified of returning to that nightmare.'
Francisco didn't spot her, and as the bus pulled out of the Mexican capital, Alejandra knew that her 10 years as a slave to the Tenancingo sex traffickers had come to an end.
'I had to lie to my family. They still believed, after 10 years, that Francisco was a good man. I had to say I left him rather than tell them the shameful truth.'
But even now Alejandra still hasn't reported the crimes she suffered. Francisco still has custody of their son, and threatens to kill him if he should be brought to justice.
'I know where that b****** is, as well as the fact that he has three other girls, two of them under 16, working for him.
'But I would rather suffer in silence than bring my baby's life into danger.'
Alejandra worries that her son, being brought up in a town built on the sex trade, will follow in his father's footsteps.
'It would be a tragedy, but he's still my son.'
She is only now able to talk about her experiences thanks to the help of counsellor Andreina Martinez who works to rescue sex trafficking victims and rehabilitate them into society.
'We don't accuse, judge or condemn,' says Andreina Martinez. 'We approach these women in a spirit of friendship and get to know them as individuals, something which they have been trained not to do by the pimps.'
Alejandra is helping the victims of sex trafficking to escape as she did.
'I don't want anyone else to suffer as I have suffered.'