Susana Trimarco disguised herself as madam and walked into brothels across northern Argentina, searching for her missing daughter among women trapped in sexual slavery and in the process, she sparked a movement that would free over 3,000 sex trafficking victims. It began in April 2002, when her 23-year-old daughter, María de los Ángeles Verón, left for a doctor's appointment in their city of San Miguel de Tucumán and never returned home. Frustrated by a police investigation she believed was deliberately sabotaged by corruption, Trimarco obtained the names of known pimps and sex traffickers from police files and launched her own search. She posed as a buyer interested in purchasing the captive women and girls - some as young as 14, who could be traded for about $800. One rape victim told her she had seen María drugged, with swollen eyes, in a trafficker's home that doubled as a holding place for newly abducted women. But by the time Trimarco could follow the lead, her daughter had been moved. Though María was never found, Trimarco's relentless pursuit transformed her into one of Argentina's most powerful human rights activists and forced sex trafficking onto national agenda. "The desperation of a mother blinds you," she says. "It makes you fearless." Through this dangerous work, Trimarco discovered the full scope of sex trafficking and corruption within the police and judiciary that kept women trapped in forced prostitution. "The police would hand [the trafficked women] back to the criminals," she recalls. "They used to say: 'Don't leave me. Take me with you.'" Trimarco ended up becoming the personal guardian to 129 survivors of sex trafficking, sheltering them in her home and helping them reunite with their families. Trimarco's relentless advocacy forced change at highest levels. Her work helped lead to first law, passed in 2008, making human trafficking a federal crime; the subsequent reforms have led to thousands of people being rescued from sex traffickers. These successes, however, have come with high personal cost to Trimarco: she has suffered many reprisals over the years including countless death threats, having her house set on fire, and several attempts to run her over in street. As more trafficking survivors and families of trafficking victims reached out to her for help, Trimarco says, "It came to a point where I just did not have capacity to help them all. That is when I decided to open a foundation." In 2007, she founded Fundación María de los Ángeles, a non-governmental organization focused on helping people escape from trafficking and lobbying for legislation to prevent it. Her efforts focused on her daughter's disappearance eventually resulted in trials for 13 people, including several police officers, in 2012; all 13 were acquitted, a ruling that prompted outrage by many and led to impeachment proceedings against three judges. In December 2013, Tucumán Supreme Court reversed acquittals and convicted ten of defendants, who received sentences ranging from 10 to 22 years in April 2014. But despite it all, Trimarco still hasn't found out what she wants to know most: what happened to her daughter. Some witnesses say she was murdered - although her body has never been found and others say she was taken overseas. Twenty-three years later, Trimarco's work continues in her daughter's name and for all survivors. Her foundation remains at the forefront of the country's fight against human trafficking, recently helping to dismantle trafficking rings in 2024 and 2025. In recent years, the foundation has expanded its role as a legal plaintiff in trafficking cases, ensuring survivors have representation throughout the judicial process. Now in her seventies, Trimarco remains internationally recognized for her work, though her search for answers about María's fate has never ceased. "Every woman I help somehow helps María," she reflects. "They represent hope in this new life of mine."
