http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2020/07/hunt-for-missing-2-year-old-leads.html

Hunt for missing 2-year-old leads police in Chiapas city to 23 abducted kids, 3 women arrested

Police searching for a 2-year-old boy who went missing from a marketplace in southern Mexico led authorities to a house where 23 abducted children were being kept and forced to sell trinkets in the street.

The children were being kept in squalid conditions and physically and psychologically abused and manipulated to sell handcrafted carvings and embroidered cloth in the colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas, authorities said.

Most of the victims were between the ages of 2 and 15, but police said they discovered three babies between 3 and 20 months old during the raid of the house on Monday. Three women were arrested and may face child trafficking charges, Chiapas state prosecutors said.

Authorities believe the older victims were also used to lure or kidnap younger children to add to the group. All of the rescued children are now in the custody of child welfare officials.

“According to the children, many of them were forced to go out on the streets to sell things, and moreover they were forced to return with a certain minimum amount of money for the right to get food and a place to sleep at the house,” said state prosecutor Jorge Llaven.