Typically, they lure women with deceitful job offers and then traffic them to big cities, mining towns and agricultural regions, where they are forced into sex slavery. For most women, in the past, it was the beginning of years of servitude in a grim underworld of prostitution. She never returned. Some witnesses said she was murdered and buried in a nearby province, most likely La Rioja, where demand for prostitutes is high among seasonal grape and olive pickers.
But her body was never found. Frustrated by an investigation at home that she said was thwarted by a web of corruption spun by judges, the police and the local mafia, Mrs. Trimarco took up the search for her daughter alone.
When it was suggested six years ago that Ms. Trimarco traveled to Spain, but the police there could not find her daughter. For her trouble, Mrs.
Trimarco, 59, has had her house set on fire by thugs who threw flaming rags drenched in kerosene onto the rooftop, and she has twice escaped being run over, once as she took out the trash around midnight. She still receives vicious anonymous phone calls and death threats, but she has never given up. HER efforts have carved the issue of sex trafficking into the political agenda in Argentina and have earned her international recognition, but she is an unlikely national heroine.
A former municipal worker, Mrs. Trimarco used to find relief from the daily grind with simple pastimes, like taking her family to nearby tourist spots and nurturing her houseplants. But the abduction of her daughter, affectionately known as Marita, upended her life. As she began her search, Mrs. Trimarco obtained the names of pimps and sex traffickers from police files.
