Human Trafficking at the Superbowl

The attorney general is sounding an alarm today about the dark side of the Super Bowl. Greg Zoeller says there will be an increase in demand for the illegal commercial sex trade in connection with the Super Bowl and, he says, we ought to expect that some of sex workers who come here are the victims of human trafficking.

Super Bowl a magnet for under-age sex trade

From MSNBC:

ATLANTA — Pimps will traffic thousands of under-age prostitutes to Texas for Sunday's Super Bowl, hoping to do business with men arriving for the big game with money to burn, child rights advocates said.

As the country's largest sporting event, the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers will make the Dallas-Fort Worth area a magnet for business of all kinds.

That includes the multimillion dollar, under-age sex industry, said activists and law enforcement officials working to combat what they say is an annual spike in trafficking of under-age girls ahead of the Super Bowl.

"The Super Bowl is one of the biggest human trafficking events in the United States," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott told a trafficking prevention meeting in January. Girls who enter the grim trade face a life of harsh treatment and danger, according to a Dallas police report in 2010.

Few who emerge are willing to speak about it. Tina Frundt, 36, is an exception. Now married and living in Washington D.C., Frundt was lured into sex work at 14 after she fell for a 24-year-old who invited her to leave home in 1989 and join his "family" in Cleveland, Ohio. That family consisted of the man and three girls living in a motel.

When Frundt declined on the first night to have sex with her boyfriend's friends they raped her. "I was angry with myself for not listening to him, so the next night when he sent me out on the street and told me ... (to earn $500) I listened," she said in a telephone interview. Frundt paced the streets for hours and finally got into a client's car.

When she came home in the morning with just $50, her pimp beat her in front of the other girls to teach them all a lesson and sent her back onto the street the next night with the warning not to return until she had reached the quota.

Read the full story here. To learn more about outreach and awareness efforts surrounding the Superbowl 2011, visit Traffick911 and read about their I'm Not Buying It campaign. For a calendar of events around the Superbowl, click here.

To read Laura C's post about trafficking and the Superbowl, click here.

The Super Bowl and Human Trafficking

The 2011 Super Bowl in Dallas, Texas will bring thousands of people to the city in the hopes of witnessing greatness. Sadly, in the shadows of all the glitz and glamour, as many as a few thousand children will be trafficked as sex slaves, bought and sold countless times throughout the event.

In 2009, the Florida Department of Children and Families assisted 24 minors who were trafficked as sex slaves for the Super Bowl. Texas State Attorney General, Greg Abbott, is taking initiative, and announced plans to send 12 individuals from his human trafficking task force to help Dallas law enforcement fight human trafficking. A number of organizations, such as Traffick 911 and Free the Captives, are mobilizing ground efforts in Dallas to raise awareness and support prevention efforts in the area.

The awareness campaign is assisted by Dallas Cowboy player, Jay Ratliff, who recently filmed a public-service announcement for Traffick 911’s I’m Not Buying It Campaign. Watch the PSA here:

This Super Bowl Sunday there is more at stake than who wins the game on the field. The countless lives destroyed by trafficking reveal the true victory comes when we stop the commercial sexual exploitation of children off the field.

Photo courtesy of the United Methodist Women.