Julie Ham, a former researcher with the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women and author of a report on trafficking and sporting events, said the hype is “overblown.”
“These concerns aren’t valid. The idea that trafficking increases during large sporting events is an unsubstantiated rumour,” she wrote in an email.
“Given how serious trafficking actually is, it’s really obscene seeing all these resources — money, time, political will — to tackle something that’s not there. Or when this rumour is used as excuse to harass and intimidate sex workers,” said Ham.
The GAATW report said there is no empirical evidence to support the idea and that the connection has been debunked by other groups as well. It looked at what happened at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 and found that sex work actually fell during that period, and an analysis of Super Bowl and World Cup events found no significant increases as predicted.
”- Super Bowl sex trafficking: Real or just a rumour? (via battlestardidactica)