On Friday, November 22nd a discussion surrounding the necessity of combating human trafficking will be held in Phoenix, Arizona. Mrs. Cindy McCain and New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie will lead this talk. A recent press release for the event states that an important topic in this discussion will be the speculated link between spikes in human trafficking activities and large events, like the Super Bowl. New Jersey is set to host the Super Bowl, the largest sporting event of the year, in 2014 which makes the link between trafficking and large crowds an important topic for Governor Christie.
For many years people in the media have speculated over the idea of the possibility of a link between trafficking and large events. However, investigations conducted in Phoenix, host of the 2008 Super Bowl, Tampa, host of the 2009 Super Bowl, and Dallas, host of the 2011 Super Bowl, found virtually no link between large sporting events and increased amounts of human trafficking. Interviews with police sergeants in the cities stated above reveal the fact that very few human trafficking or prostitution arrests were made in the week leading up to the Super Bowl in the cities’ respective hosting years. In the report, officials state that the number of arrests made in relation to trafficking or prostitution were no higher than the same types of arrests made in a typical week in a large city. One event that was sighted as increasing the amount of human trafficking was the Olympics in Greece in 2004. However, an interview with the spokeswoman for the Greek embassy in Washington DC stated that the increased number of human trafficking related requests was due to the increased coordination of efforts to combat trafficking, and not an increase in the crime itself.
The same detailed analysis that was done for the Super Bowl cities was applied to other sporting events such as the World Cup and the London Olympics. Still, no link between a large influx of people and an increase in the amount of human trafficking has been found. In another study conducted in Germany, it was found that sporting events like the World Cup did increase the demand for prostitution in the host city although no notable supply increase was seen. In this same study, an advocacy group was quoted saying that the World Cup in Germany would bring an estimated 40,000 prostitutes to the area. Every expert cited, whether they believed that sporting events increased trafficking and prostitution incidents or didn’t, said that the estimate was unsupported and extremely exaggerated. Many advocates and experts believe that the focus put onto the correlation between large sporting events and increases in human trafficking actually hurt their efforts in other areas of the fight to end human trafficking.
Yet, lawmakers and legislators still focus on the unsubstantiated rumor. In 2012, the governor of Indiana signed a piece of human trafficking legislation days before Indianapolis was to host the Super Bowl because he believed such events “tend to be magnets for criminal rings supporting prostitution.”
If there is no evidence to support this rampant rumor, why do so many people still believe it?
Perhaps the talk in Phoenix this Friday will shed some light on why legislators, like Governor Christie, and anti-trafficking advocates, like Mrs. McCain, are still hung-up on this rumor.
Combat Human Trafficking 