Lies told often enough die hard. The Super Bowl Trafficking Lie is right up there with the lie about Super Bowl Day being the day more spousal abuse occurs than any other day of the year.
From Salon: http://www.salon.com/2014/01/30/the_super_bowl_trafficking_myth/
Every game brings warnings of a boom in forced prostitution — but there’s no evidence
Tracy Clark-Flory
Wednesday, Jan 29, 2014
There are a few things I have come to expect during the Super Bowl: some maybe-OK commercials, an overwrought halftime show, superior programming on Animal Planet, and sex trafficking hysteria. On the last count, Sunday’s game has already delivered my expectations.
The media is spinning the usual yarn about how massive sporting events create dollar signs in the eyes of prostitutes, pimps and sex traffickers, all of whom allegedly flock to the host city in slavering hordes. Local officials are assuring the media that they have trained everyone from police officers to cab drivers to spot trafficked women during the game. Yesterday, Rep. Chris Smith told a House subcommittee, “We know from the past, any sports venue — especially the Super Bowl — acts as a sex-trafficking magnet.”
It’s just not true — and even anti-trafficking activists will tell you this.
Take a 2011 report from the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, which surveyed the available data and concluded, “There is no evidence that large sporting events cause an increase in trafficking for prostitution.” That statement is pretty much the exact opposite of Rep. Smith’s — and guess which claim is backed by actual research. The report lists a number of reasons that a Super Bowl trafficking boom makes no sense, including that fact that “short-term events are not likely to be profitable for traffickers or sex workers” and that, oh by the way, “large sporting events are not only attended by men.” (Also, as the report suggests, consider the frequent estimation, which has never been borne out, that the Super Bowl will bring as many as 100,000 sex workers into town. Now compare that to the number of people who visit the game each year: 150,000 to 200,000.)
