“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…” – Mickey Goodman, for Reuters.
Right now, pimps are readying their under-age sex slaves to serve the thousands of potential customers pouring into Dallas. It is difficult and perhaps inaccurate to use the term “prostitute” given that the popular conception of prostitution is a lifestyle choice vs. forced labor.
These are girls who have run away from home or have been kicked out of their home by their parents. They are taken in by pimps who target them at malls, movie theaters, skate parks, and wherever teenagers gather.
Once within the grasp of the pimp, they are beaten, drugged, raped, abused, shamed, isolated, and yelled at in an effort to psychologically condition the child to never leave. They face twin horrors. On the one hand is a life of serial rape for profit where they are expected to meet quotas and benchmarks. But the thought of leaving or running away is overshadowed by the fear of being killed–or worse–their family being killed by an angry pimp.
Those pimps are now preparing for a big score in Dallas.
If you think it doesn’t happen, we know that law enforcement agencies have rescued at least 50 girls from the previous two Super Bowls. How many didn’t get rescued is truly a guess. Globally, we know that only 1-2% are rescued. I am not implying that is the case in the U.S. at the Super Bowl, but I would guess that many more are left in slavery–and too few are rescued.
Fortunately, Dallas has made great strides to crack down on prostitution, and particularly the trafficking of minors at the Super Bowl.
Any one of the links on this page will take you to an article with more information about the problem of trafficking surrounding the Super Bowl. Read for yourself what Dallas and the state of Texas are doing with local advocacy groups, churches, and activists to bring awareness, attention, and hopefully rescue for girls and prosecution for pimps. And definitely read the letter from a girl who was trafficked for sex at a previous Super Bowl.
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posted February 3, 2011 at 9:58 am
Tom, in the webinar a couple of weeks ago you made a good point that rescue of trafficked children, while very important, is often overemphasized compared to prevention efforts. In developing countries, effective prevention efforts focus on education — leading to better, legitimate job options — and alleviating extreme poverty.
Certainly we have poverty in the US, but children who are targeted at “malls, movie theaters, [and] skate parks” don’t seem to fit the mold of trafficked children in developing countries. What do you see as the most effective methods of domestic trafficking prevention in developed countries? What organizations do you think are doing this effectively?