My Words as Weapons: Super Bowl Trafficking

The A21 Campaign

The Super Bowl has become an event far beyond the financial means of most people.  Only those with an overabundance of disposable income can afford to go to such an event, and because the audience is made up of such privileged people, many believing themselves to be far more important and untouchable than others, because alcohol consumption will be increased, and because the majority of Super Bowl attendees are men, sex trafficking will spike for the weekend as more and more young women, many underage, will be forced to give their bodies over and over again for the profit of others.

Here’s a creepy little tidbit for you:

“Dallas police and federal authorities arrested 133 minors for prostitution during the 2011 Super Bowl, and according to Forbes Magazine 10,000 prostitutes were transported to Miami for the Super Bowl in 2010.” –Michael Reagan’s “The Super Bowl and Sex Trafficking” from townhall.com

The numbers here are astounding, and I have to admit I’m almost equally outraged that so many prostitutes were arrested while their pimps and the johns seem to go untouched.  Those are the true criminals.

I’m thrilled to see news and training spread to create awareness of this atrocity.  How sad it is that we must anticipate more sales of humans for sexual pleasures than usual whenever and wherever big sporting events take place.  Consider this when you watch the Olympics in Russia in a few weeks (since the USSR broke apart sex trafficking victims have largely come from this area of the world anyway) or the World Cup in Brazil this summer.  At least each of those events only happen every four years (well, every two if we count summer and winter Olympics), while the Super Bowl is an annual spike for the trafficking industry.  It also pleases me that so many organizations prepare well in advance for these events, spreading awareness and training law enforcement officials and those in the travel industry, equipping them with the knowledge of how they can help save these exploited individuals.

I thought this was a great little segment to share:

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/sex-trafficking-spike-looms-super-bowls-shadow-22258289