Human Trafficking and the London Olympics
It is clear that prestigious sporting events can play a central role in attracting attention to the issue of human trafficking, and can function as an opportunity to increase engagement across communities. Most importantly, as there is evidence of continuous human trafficking in London and across the entire UK, we should use this opportunity that the London Olympics presents us with.
STOP THE TRAFFIK has experienced positive responses to requests for cooperation in anti-human trafficking in London. In London, there is evidence of human trafficking in the five Olympic boroughs – Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest, and Greenwich. In 2008-09 the Metropolitan Police’s Human Trafficking Team conducted 14 operations in these five Olympic boroughs, and provided advice in 21 other operations there. A shelter for female sex trafficking victims received 105 referrals between 2003 and 2009 from these boroughs.
The United Nations (UN.GIFT) and STOP THE TRAFFIK have created a new joint project called ‘GIFT box’ which will take place during the 2012 Olympics to inspire visitors, both from the UK and abroad, to take action to stop the trade.
The GIFT box is a giant public art installation, which will demonstrate to people how victims of human trafficking can be deceived; beyond the promises of exciting opportunities that will entice people to the box, once inside, the stark reality of human trafficking will be revealed.
There are four different types of boxes, each dealing with the forms of human trafficking prevalent on the streets of London: domestic servitude, forced street crime, sexual exploitation, and forced labour. Whilst the GIFT box will be evocative, it will also be family-friendly and will inspire people to advocate and end trafficking in their own communities.
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Jeff Lewis:
August 11th, 2012 at 6:47 am
According to the media hype There was supposed to be hundreds of thousands of under age child sex slaves kidnapped and forced to have sex with super bowl fans. At the Dallas Super Bowl 2011. WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL OF THEM????????????
It was all a big lie told by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, government officials, and various anti-prostitution groups: Traffick911, Not for Sale, Change-org A Future Not A Past, Polaris Project, Salvation Army, Women’s Funding Network, and the Dallas Women’s Foundation, which are anti-prostitution groups that tell lies in order to get grant money from the government and charities to pay their high salaries, and get huge amounts of money into their organizations.
As proved in the link below:
Top FBI agent in Dallas (Robert Casey Jr.) sees no evidence of expected spike in child sex trafficking:
“Among those preparations was an initiative to prevent an expected rise in sex trafficking and child prostitution surrounding the Super Bowl. But Robert Casey Jr., special agent in charge of the FBI’s Dallas office, said he saw no evidence that the increase would happen, nor that it did.
“In my opinion, the Super Bowl does not create a spike in those crimes,” he said. “The discussion gets very vague and general. People mixed up child prostitution with the term human trafficking, which are different things, and then there is just plain old prostitution.”
http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/super-bowl/local/20110302-top-fbi-agent-in-dallas-praises-super-bowl-security-effort-sees-no-evidence-of-expected-spike-in-child-sex-trafficking.ece
This myth of thousands or millions of underage sex slaves tries to make every sports fan a sex criminal. No matter what the sport is, or in what country it is in.
Brian McCarthy isn’t happy. He’s a spokesman for the NFL. Every year he’s forced to hear why his customers are adulterers and child molesters. Brian McCarthy says the sport/super bowl sex slave story is a urban legend, with no truth at all.
I would like to see a news organization do a full report on the lies, myths and exaggerated numbers being told about sex trafficking slaves. The articles about the super bowl sex slaves, has been proved wrong many times, but news organizations still report about it, as if it were fact.
== World Cup 2006 ==
Politicians, religious and aid groups, still repeat the media story that 40,000 prostitutes were trafficked into Germany for the 2006 world cup – long after leaked police documents revealed there was no truth at all in the tale. A baseless claim of 25,000 trafficking victims is still being quoted, recently, for example, by the Salvation Army in written evidence to the home affairs select committee, in which they added: “Other studies done by media have suggested much higher numbers.” Which has been proven by the German police to be completely false. Yet people still talk about these false numbers as if it were fact.
==World Cup 2010 ==
Again using the made up number of 40,000 prostitutes trafficked:
The behavior of fans in South Africa has run contrary to what was predicted prior to the start of the tournament after David Bayever told World Cup organizers in March it was feared that up to 40,000 extra prostitutes could converge in the host nation to meet the expected demand. Bayever, deputy chairperson of South Africa’s Central Drug Authority (CDA) that advises on drug abuse but also works with prostitutes, warned: “Forty-thousand new prostitutes. As if we do not have enough people of our own, we have to import them to ensure our visitors are entertained.”
But the tournament in 2010, if anything, has seen the modern-day soccer fan attracted to art galleries and museums over brothels.
A trend that has seen a drop in revenue across the board for the prostitution industry, which is illegal in South Africa. “Zobwa,” the chairperson of Sisonke — an action group representing around 70 street prostitutes in Johannesburg — said business had been down over the last month. “The World Cup has been devastating. We thought it was going to be a cash cow but it’s chased a lot of the business away. It’s been the worst month in my company’s history,” the owner and founder of one of Johannesburg’s most exclusive escort companies told CNN.
In recent years, every time there has been a major international sporting event, a group of government officials, campaigning feminists, pliant journalists and NGOs have claimed that the movement of thousands of men to strange foreign countries where there will be lots of alcohol and horniness will result in the enslavement of women for the purposes of sexual pleasure. Obviously. And every time they have simply doubled the made-up scare figures from the last international sporting event, to make it look like this problem of sport/sex/slavery gets worse year on year. Yet each year it is proved false.
This myth tries to make every sports fan a sex criminal. No matter what the sport is, or in what country it is in. These anti-prostitution groups need to in invent a victim that does not exist in order to get press attention.
Here are some good websites about sex trafficking:
http://bebopper76.wordpress.com
http://sextraffickingtruths.blogspot.com/
http://www.lauraagustin.com/
http://www.villagevoice.com/sex-trafficking/
http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/thread00272_trafficking_hype.htm
Jantine - STOP THE TRAFFIK:
October 4th, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Hello Jeff,
I share your opinion that there is no substantial evidence for an increase in human trafficking during major sporting events, however there is evidence of human trafficking continuously happening in London and the rest of the UK, before, during and after the Olympics.
With the GIFT box project, STOP THE TRAFFIK (STT) took the opportunity of so many people being together in one place to inform them on what human trafficking is (ALL types of trafficking prevalent in the UK: forced labour, domestic servitude, sexual exploitation and forced street crime/begging; this includes people of all gender, age and race/nationality) and what people can do to make their own communities safer of trafficking. We believe in a grassroots approach and try to create communities in which it is harder for traffickers to operate. This is what we always do and we have just used the Olympics as a good opportunity to reach many people at one moment.
Almost 400 outstanding GIFT box volunteers raised awareness of human trafficking and opened the door to conversation and change. In addition, people have found that the GIFT box is a place to talk about how they themselves had been trafficked, their concerns about suspected victims of trafficking and even conversations that we hope will lead to international trafficking rings being disrupted.
We totally agree with you that rumours, such as the totally unreliable numbers as mentioned in the media around the German World Cup, are causing more harm than good.
Best wishes,
Jantine