Tortured, raped, and disfigured: No arrests in the case of 6 murdered escorts

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Valor Por Tamaulipas
                 
                       
MEXICO - The murder count of escorts, four Venezuelans, one Argentine and one Mexican, continues without end in this country and already adds six in the last year, after the recent death of another Venezuelan named Kenny.

The murders of these women, in the framework of the wave of femicides that has shaken the country for at least a decade, have remained unpunished so far, despite its media impact.

The peculiarity of this new case is that Kenny, the Venezuelan, was burned with acid. It is not known whether before or after being victimized.

What is known is that her body appeared with traces of torture and her face completely disfigured and abandoned on public roads in the municipality of Ecatepec, one of the most dangerous areas of the State of Mexico, adjacent to Mexico City.

Kenny, 26, advertised herself, like the majority of the others in Mexico City and the State of Mexico, Puebla and Nuevo Leon, on the website known as "Zona de Divas."

The first investigations reveal that Kenny left for the weekend with some friends to an electronic music festival in the State of Mexico, but on last Friday she went out of communication with friends and acquaintances on WhatsApp.

Her friends revealed that she met the people she went out with through social networks, who hired her for an escort service and invited her to the electronic music event.

Numerous women are brought to Mexico from Central and South America with deception by networks of traffickers under the promise that they will work as models, but when they arrive they are forced to cover the expenses of their move with sexual services.

Kenny was considered a star of the internet portal and had numerous customers, which generated good profits for site administrators, according to her acquaintances.

It is the first time that one of the victims was found in an open area, as the rest were found in hotel rooms.

The deaths gained greater notoriety on the social media sites not only because they are in most cases foreigners, but because the phenomenon of feminicide in the country is on the rise.

The first femicide of women who apparently were engaged in offering high-level prostitution services through the internet, occurred on February 4, 2017 at the Príncipe de Escandón hotel in Mexico City, when the body of the woman was found. Venezuelan Wendy Vaneska, 26 years old.

The second occurred on April 13 at the Estadio hotel in the Roma neighborhood. It was also another 28-year-old woman identified as Katya, the only Mexican victim of this chain of homicides.

On November 17, the third murder took place, the victim being the Venezuelan Génesis, 24 years old, at the Venustiano Carranza hotel.

Adreina, a 27-year-old Venezuelan whose body was found on December 27 in the upscale section of San Pedro Garza García, State of Nuevo Leon, was the fourth victim.

However, she died when she left a nightclub and gunmen shot her from a moving car.

The fifth case corresponded to the Argentine Karen Ailen Grodziñiski, 23 years old, originally from the Chaco province town Presidente Roque Sáenz Peña. She appeared lifeless at the Pasadena Hotel a day later.

Finally came the case of Venezuelan Kenny, which appears as a real challenge to the authorities and is fueling again a strong clamor for justice because so far no one has been arrested for the six murders.

According to official figures, between 2004 and 2016 in Mexico, 26,266 women were murdered, of which 34 percent (8,913) could be classified as femicides. That is, they were victimized for the mere fact of being women, according to the organization Civic Data.