A mother of 14 tried to make ends meet, police
say, by pushing her daughters into "hell" and selling
their virginity for a couple of hundred dollars.
Margarita de Jesus Zapata Moreno, 45, was arrested
this week together with a 51-year-old contractor who
police believe impregnated one of the young
daughters.
She broke down in tears when she stood in front of
the cameras after being arrested in Bogota, the
Colombian capital. The Bogota Metropolitan Police say
Zapata sold the virginity of 12 daughters to much older
men seeking to have sex with young virgins.
Authorities also say the suspect would begin selling her
daughters to men as soon as the girls turned 12 years
old. She charged anywhere between 300,000 and
400,000 Colombian Pesos ($160 to $212) for a virgin.
But Zapata strongly denies the accusation. Colombian
authorities often show high-profile suspects to the
media shortly after arresting them. When Zapata was
standing in front of the cameras Wednesday, one of
the reporters shouted a question to her: "Did you
prostitute your daughters?" She answered: "No, my
darling."
Colombian police say they learned of this alleged case
of abuse because one of the alleged victims stepped
forward. Authorities say one of the suspect's
daughters forced into prostitution gave birth to a baby
boy when she was 14. She had refused her mother's
orders to have an abortion.
Colonel Carlos Melendez, a Bogota Metropolitan Police
spokesman, told CNN affiliate Caracol TV the young girl
described to investigators the "hell" in which she lived
when she was still a prepubescent girl, about being
forced to have sex with much older men in her home
and about a life of abuse and neglect.
"She was a minor and she still had the courage to
report the abuse and also to refuse to have an
abortion. That's when this investigation started, from
the threats of her own mother," Melendez said.
The investigation took more than a year to complete
because the only witness willing to testify, the 14-year-
old girl, now 16, disappeared, apparently because she
feared her mother would kill her for going to the
police.
After she reappeared, she also told authorities about a
man who had sex with her and got her pregnant.
Police arrested a 51-year-old man who investigators
say fathered the son of the girl who was 14 years old
when the baby was born. The suspect declined to
comment at Wednesday's police presentation.
Police are asking the rest of the daughters to provide
more information about this case. "Those who are
watching or listening to us, we would like to ask them
to come to the police so that they give us information
about transpired in this case," Melendez said.
Police investigators say Zapata also forced her older
daughters to drink alcohol and do drugs. Some ended
up working as prostitutes and are missing, police said.
Police say those two arrests are only the beginning.
Investigators say they will also build cases against the
men who were having sex with these minors.
According to authorities, only two of Margarita de Jesus
Zapata Moreno's 14 children were not forced into
prostitution. They were the two youngest -- an 11-
year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl -- and they have
been placed in the custody of a Colombian government
child protection agency.
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