I hate the Super Bowl.
I love football. Cheered the Irish alongside my dad on Saturdays. Now I tweet Bears on Sundays.
What’s the disconnect? Any big event is big business for traffickers of sex slavery.
The traffickers bus in the girls and women and boys on Super Bowl weekend. The johns pay to indulge in sexual pleasure. They don’t care about the girls. Just themselves.
The slave owners pocket the money, lots of money: $9.5 billion throughout the world each year for sex slavery, according to Born to Fly citing the FBI. Human trafficking (all types, including forced labor) ranks #2 among all income-generating syndicates. Illegal drugs are #1; illegal arms are #3.
The average of sex slaves around the world is 11 years old.
Are You Angry?
Me too. Here’s a link to a brief video. It’ll get you real mad. Righteous anger! Warning: It’s disturbing.
What should you do with your anger? That’s the big question, a hopeful question.
You can make a difference. You can help end slavery.
Occasionally I’m awakened by a dream in which I’m the female version of Chuck Norris, karate chop my way into a brothel of sex slaves, and lead them to freedom.
But dreams won’t stop slavery at the Super Bowl. Action will. You can do more to end slavery than you might think.
How You Make a Difference
First. pray. Pray for the johns, the slaves, the traffickers, and the authorities. Pray how the Holy Spirit leads you.
Second, become aware. More and more websites and organizations are involved in stopping sex slavery through prevention, rescue, and aftercare. A few great ones are: Free the Slaves, Born to Fly, The Exodus Road, and International Justice Mission.
Third, decide how you’ll make a difference. A few ideas:
- Financially support groups that fight sex slavery.
- Discuss the book God in a Brothel (endorsed by many Christian leaders) in your Sunday school class or small group.
- Blog about sex slavery. The Exodus Road has a team of bloggers you might consider joining. Of course you can blog on your own.
- Involve your church’s youth group in a fundraiser to support organizations that prevent, rescue, and/or provide aftercare to sex slaves.
Remember, you can change your world because Christ has changed you.
Let’s start by praying during the Super Bowl. Are you game?
photo credit: furanda via photopin cc
You make no actual connection between sex slavery and the Super Bowl. The notion that any big event creates sex slavery is demonstrably false. Example: a convention against sex slavery, the Academy Awards, the Grammy’s. All of these events do not create increased demand for sex trafficking and are all “big events.”
It’s awesome that you’re trying to fight sex trafficking, but you will be much more effective by creating well-crafted and researched arguments, not making baseless accusations.
Danny, I’m sending your comment for response. Let’s see what facts people smarter than me share here with you and all. God bless you.
Danny, Lucy asked for comments from people who were smarter than her, so I doubt that I’m qualified, but I’ll post my two cents anyway. As one who has researched human trafficking/child sex slavery, written a trilogy on it, and speak about it around the world, including radio/TV appearances, I would say you’re both right. Certainly not EVERY large venue/big event attracts sex trafficking, but many do, as law enforcement will attest. The Super Bowl, of course, is one of those primary venues. From my perspective, rather than my nitpicking about which of you is correct, let me urge that all who read this ask God what they can personally do to help combat this atrocious crime. None of us can solve the problem alone, but each of us can do at least one thing–and together we can make a difference. May our heart’s cry be “Abolition!” as we seek to “rescue the perishing” and restore hope to the hopeless.
Thanks, Kathi, for getting to the main point: abolishing sex slavery. Yes, not every large event attracts sex slavery, Danny. A Billy Graham-type crusade would not, obviously. Many large sporting events do. The Olympics did. Here’s a link: http://www.christianpost.com/news/anti-trafficking-groups-raising-awareness-ahead-of-london-summer-games-75417/
I loved your trilogy on child sex slavery: poignant, sensitive, important.
Hi Danny,
I’m president of the Born2Fly Project to stop child trafficking and have been in anti-trafficking work for more than 10 years. LucyAnn is correct. Large sporting events create party atmosphere and traffickers bring in girls and women.
Here is some evidence:
1. B2F is a member of the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking (FCAHT), and we’ve had 2 SuperBowls in our state in the past few years–Miami and Tampa. In both cases FCAHT worked in partnership with law enforcement and arrested a number of traffickers and rescued a number of girls, including minors.
2. For the Dallas Super Bowl, FCAHT helped train local law enforcement and agencies, with the same result.
3. This year FCAHT has been in New Orleans doing training.
4. I’ve personally participated in an outreach during a large college football event in Florida and we saw minors being trafficked right on the streets. Yes, there is definitely already trafficking in these cities, but the numbers increase exponentially during major sporting events. Just look on Backpage or Craigslist (which law enforcement do) the week before these events. The number of ads skyrocket in those cities.
5. My colleague Laura Lederer at Global Centurion, which targets demand, was also part of the training in New Orleans leading up to the Super Bowl and wrote this:
http://www.globalcenturion.org/programs/researchanddevelopment/mapping-hubs-of-demand/
6. Here are some posts I wrote on my own blog in past years about the connection between trafficking and large sporting events including interviews with those who do rescues at these events:
Human trafficking at Super Bowl XLV: How to stop the traffic
http://dianascimone.typepad.com/.services/blog/6a00d8341d6a8353ef00d8341d6a8553ef/search?filter.q=Super+Bowl#ixzz2Jg12Xg8m
http://www.dianascimone.com
Man Charged With Child Trafficking in Miami for Super Bowl
http://dianascimone.typepad.com/.services/blog/6a00d8341d6a8353ef00d8341d6a8553ef/search?filter.q=Super+Bowl#ixzz2Jg1EwjjR
http://www.dianascimone.com
Super Bowl’s Not-So-Super Side: Human Trafficking
http://dianascimone.typepad.com/diana_scimone/2010/01/super-bowls-notsosuper-side-human-trafficking.html
Like Lucy Ann, I love football. I love the Super Bowl. I just hate the trafficking that is sadly associated with it. One of the worst things we can do for these children is pretend that this horror is not happening to them. It is.
Diana Scimone
President
The Born2Fly Project to stop child trafficking
http://www.born2fly.org
http://www.dianascimone.com (blog)
Diana, great, informational reply! I looked at the links. The data makes a very strong link between the Super Bowl and sex trafficking. Thank you!
Hey Lucy,
I just now saw all of these replies. Thanks! This is a fascinating topic. I am, in fact, not a sports fan, just struggled to see the connection. Pretty stark stuff. Thanks for sharing and sorry it took me so long to respond 🙂