A Mexican young girl, subjected to the horrors of sex trafficking at just 12 years old, shared her harrowing account of struggle and survival.

Life for Karla Jacinto was not a fairy tale in Mexico, but at 12 she thought she had met Prince Charming, reported the CNN.

‘He bought me clothes and shoes and told me, ‘You’re going to be my princess,’’ said Jacinto, now a human trafficking activist.

‘Her new boyfriend was older and from a faraway village called Tenancingo. After three months, the relationship changed and the scam revealed.

Jacinto’s prince was a pimp working as part of an organised crime ring. He told her she would be working the streets as a prostitute.’

‘He started punching me with his fists, kicking me, pulling my hair,’ she said. ‘He would spit in my face. That day he even burned me with the iron.’

‘Susan Coppedge is the US State Department’s ambassador-at-large to combat human trafficking. Before that, she worked at the US Attorney’s Office in Atlanta.’

‘We have prosecuted numerous cases here in Atlanta involving traffickers from Mexico, primarily Tenancingo,’ Coppedge said.

‘Coppedge said entire families in Tenancingo and the rest of the state often are in on the scam.

‘CNN over several weeks made numerous attempts to speak with Tenancingo town officials, even going to the mayor’s office twice but denied interviews each time. Coppedge said there was good reason for the officials being evasive.’

‘We’ve been told by the traffickers themselves and by the girls that this town raises pimps,’ she said. ‘That’s what they’ve done for generations. That’s what the town does. That is their industry. And yet in smaller, rural communities around there, the young girls don’t have any idea that this is what the town’s reputation is.’

‘Jacinto said she was forced to prostitute for four years with never a day off. She said her pimp trafficked her across Mexico, demanding she see at least 30 customers a day and keep a daily log of clients.’

‘By age 16, Jacinto calculated she was raped more than 43,200 times.’

‘There were men who would go just to laugh at me,’ she said. ‘They laughed when I cried.’

‘Rosi Orozco is a victims’ advocate. The former Mexican senator said it’s the powerful who allow trafficking to continue.’

‘She had clients that were judges, priests, pastors and of course police,’ Orozco said. ‘So she knew she could not go to the authorities.’

‘Jacinto said one time 30 uniformed police officers raided the brothel she was in. Instead making arrests or rescues, they made a deal with the brothel owner.’

‘The uniformed officers entered the room we were in,’ she said. ‘We had to do everything they asked of us. The whole thing lasted three or four hours.

‘They could see we were minors. It was obvious, right? We looked our age. We weren’t even fully developed. They could see our sad faces.’

‘There are an estimated 2 million children exploited every year in the global commercial sex trade. Violence, corruption and a mix of fear and shame are major factors in keeping children from trying to escape.’

‘The pain in Jacinto’s face is clear, and her story is shared by so many other children like her, still being controlled by human traffickers.’

‘You see me now with a smile on my face, but when I think about that it still hurts a lot,’ Jacinto said. ‘I’m going to fight against this until the very end. Every day when I wake up, I wonder if I’m going to be alive by the end of the day because of what we do. And what we do makes me a target. Death is lurking.’