(t-shirt worn by anti-trafficking volunteers in Miami)
Millions of football fans are celebrating the biggest American sporting victory of the year tonight. But in the alleys of Miami, host of this year’s Super Bowl, just a handful of social workers, police, and volunteers are roaming around in the shadows, looking for underage girls who might have been trafficked to the city for the big game.
It’s one of the darker, and unfortunately pretty typical, side effects of major events in this country. Large gatherings of men — conventions, concerts, and football games too — with money to spend, time to kill, and fun to be had present tantalizing markets to those with human wares to hawk.
Brad Dennis, director of search operations for KlaasKIDS Foundation, told CNN:
It’s just that party culture. Super Bowl is an entertainment event and everyone wants to come down and party and when you throw that mix into an area with lots money to spend, it’s a traffickers’ playground.
Ernie Allen, of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, explained to The Miami Herald:
This is truly an example of supply and demand. They use these kids as commodities for sale or trade, and go to where demand is the greatest, and where they can make the most money. That’s why they follow events like the Super Bowl.
Efforts to intervene in the selling of children to Super Bowl tourists during last year’s event in Tampa were most successful in the hotel industry. Employees who had been educated about the dangers and the signs of underage prostitution were able to recognize when it was happening and tip off law enforcement.
This year, activists in Miami were even more prepared. Volunteers have been printing fliers, making t-shirts, and spreading the word since weeks before the game. Since Wednesday, they’ve been scouring the streets, on the lookout for young girls “in the life.” In some cases, there are photographs of missing children, many of them runaways, whom volunteers hope might be spotted. The average runaway in America is propositioned by a pimp or a customer within 72 hours of hitting the streets.
If it all sounds quite disheartening, brace yourself for this summer’s World Cup games in South Africa. They’re bigger, and longer, and they draw more fans. NGOs, law enforcement, and journalists already fear, and are even reporting, influxes of women and children to South Africa for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Time reports that girls are already being sold by gangs in the country. You can also check out the Human Goods post on sex tourism to Beijing during the 2008 Olympic games.
What you can do: Support organizations that work with women and children in sexual slavery (see blogroll: NGO/Activism).
Most importantly — talk about it. Talk to your friends, talk to your family, bring it up in your churches and neighborhoods. Admittedly, it’s a drag of a topic to drudge up when everyone’s in the mood for a good time, but the first step to effecting change in the world, and alleviating suffering, is acknowledging that something is really profoundly wrong. If the conversation inspires even one person to just squint through the sexually loaded marketing of young women to consumers in the Super Bowl advertisements alone, then, well, that’s something.
If you have news about a missing minor, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children runs a 24-hour hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST
