Women in the cocaine supply chain

At the production stage, the most common roles for women are those of coca growers and coca pickers. In international trafficking, women usually participate as "drug mules". And in national-level drug distribution, women are often involved in smuggling drugs into prisons and in street-level drug dealing. At each stage, roles carried out by women can vary from supporting to managerial, with low-ranking positions prevailing.
In most cocaine-related activities, women participate together with men. The exception is smuggling of drugs into prison, which is carried out almost exclusively by women. In the case of women who smuggle small quantities of cocaine internationally and at the national level, gender does not seem to be a decisive factor for their recruitment. Instead, gender matters in choosing a method of concealment and in adopting traditional gendered behaviours to avoid attention of law enforcement.
The available evidence indicates that only a minority of women are coerced or deceived into cocaine trafficking. However, women's decisions to become involved are often shaped by their responses to socio-economic conditions. In Latin American and the Caribbean region, for example, women are less likely than men to participate in the labour market (53 per cent women compared to 77 per cent of men); more likely to work without pay or for lower pay; and on average work more hours than men. Those who have no ability to advance economically are sometimes "pushed" into the cocaine trade by the perceived lack of alternatives. [Extracts]