Gunmen and sexism: On the road with Mexico's women truckers

Fewer than 3% of all lorry drivers globally are women, even though employers acknowledge that they are safer drivers. But in Mexico, where gender-based violence and armed robbery are common, it has proven hard to attract them to the profession. BBC 100 Women travelled with women truckers on some of the country's dangerous roads.

"Now they'll fire three shots, they'll leave me here wrapped in this blanket and no-one is going to find me," thought Clara Fragoso, as she lay in the bushes a short distance from a busy road.

It was the middle of the night and she should have reached her destination - Tuxpan, on the Gulf of Mexico coast - hours earlier. Instead, she had been forced out of her lorry, and a man was now pointing a gun at her.

It began when a car with flashing lights drove up from behind and signalled at her to pull over. It looked like a police car, but it wasn't.

Hooded men climbed out and ordered her to walk into the bushes and lie on the ground while they checked the trailer.

"I was already saying goodbye to this world," says Fragoso, 57.

But the conversation that followed took an unexpected turn.

"The guy with the gun asked me how old I was," she says. "It turned out I was the same age as his mum. 'How did you end up driving a lorry":[]}