Abstract

WILCHES-TINJACA, Jaime Andrés; RIVERA-ORTEGA, Daniela; GUERRERO-SIERRA, Hugo Fernando  and  VILLARREAL-RAMOS, Román Leonardo. Gender Gaps and Criminal Governance of Drug Trafficking in Latin America. Finanz. polit. econ. [online]. 2024, vol.16, n.1, pp.181-214.  Epub May 31, 2024. ISSN 2248-6046.  https://doi.org/10.14718/revfinanzpolitecon.v16.n1.2024.8.

Inequality and exclusion in labor market access for Latin American women has allowed drug trafficking to become an illegal but legitimate provider of employment. The objective of this article is to identify the incidence of female roles in the drug trafficking economy. The methodology of qualitative approach and explanatory type takes digital ethnography as an instrument of data collection to systematize fifty reports on these labor dynamics in Latin America. The results show that in five countries, despite the continued instrumentalization as providers of sexual services, women's roles have been reconfigured with professional and higher-risk jobs in the logistical chains of the business, although this also means that they are more exposed than men when it comes to criminal proceedings and receiving punishments that simulate the effectiveness of the judicial system. The discussion raises the issue of how drug trafficking has established a model of criminal governance that reproduces gender gaps in contexts mediated by precarious democracies, permissive economic and institutional policies, and fragile state and business sectors.

Keywords : women; drug trafficking; gender gaps; gender; criminal governance; illegality; legality; legitimacy.

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