“They are really in the heart of where all this happens,” said Lauzon. Since 2006, when the cartel took over Tijuana and all tourism but sex tourism essentially stopped, there has been very little hope for any child growing up there to find a path towards a different life. There are more than 18,000 registered prostitutes in Tijuana (officials believe at least as many are not registered) and 6,000 street kids, according to UNICEF 60 percent of those kids have parents who suffer drug addiction or are in jail. Some of their mothers were prostitutes, and the pull of either the sex industry or the drug cartel would likely eventually pull many of the kids in, as well. Many of the kids they met a little while later at the park were connected to the Hong Kong brothel, or the other major brothel in town, the Adelitas Bar. “That is Hong Kong, the biggest brothel in all North America.” They were about a block from the park, when he stopped and pointed to a large red building across the street. Giezi was giving Mackie and a couple of her friends a tour. One day they were walking to a park called Benito Juarez sports complex, where a couple named Giezi and Amanda Niño ran an outreach program called “Zone Kids” for children growing up within Zona Norte, the largest red light district in North America. A group of kids from the school was visiting Tijuana as part of a youth mission. It was 2017 and she was a senior at Ambassador High School in Torrance. Mackie Lauzon was 18 years old when she took a different kind of spring break. Davy Miles of Hermosa Beach gets a thank you hug from a girl in Tijuana.
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