Trafficking in sex workers does not rise during Olympics, according to global antitrafficking group
The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women has issued a briefing paper suggesting there isn’t an increase in trafficking of women forced into prostitution in connection with large sporting events.
The GAATW, an global alliance of more than 90 nongovernmental groups, based this conclusion on data from other large sporting events, such as the 2004 Olympics in Athens and the 2006 World Cup soccer matches in Berlin.
“Given the international ”˜hype’ on this issue, it’s no surprise that discussion around trafficking in persons and forced prostitution in relation to the 2010 Olympics has been gaining momentum in Vancouver and across Canada,” the GAATW paper states.
In Athens, the paper states, there was an anticipation of 20,000 prostitutes who would be trafficked into the city for the Olympics.
“In reality, ”˜only’ 181 trafficked persons were reported in all of 2004 in Greece, and according to Greece’s Annual Report on Organised Crime and International Organisation on Migration (IOM) in Athens, there were no instances of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation during the 2004 Olympics,” the GAATW paper states.
Approximately 40,000 sex workers were anticipated to be brought in for the 2006 World Cup in Berlin. “In reality, all data, information and expert statements strongly indicate this did not occur during or after the World Cup,” GAATW states in the paper.
It adds: “Unfortunately, much energy and funding has been put into national and municipal campaigns to prevent trafficking in persons before and during sporting events—with little known benefit for such campaigns—and this trend seems to be reoccurring in Vancouver and across Canada.”
Here are some reasons why there isn’t widespread trafficking of women during large sporting events, according to the paper:
”¢ It’s costly to traffic women, and this “business” needs sufficient profits, which can’t be generated over a short period of time.
”¢ Women who’ve been trafficked are living illegally in a country. Large sporting events like the Olympics have a larger police presence, which elevates the risk for the traffickers.
Ӣ The priority of visitors is to watch the sporting events, which leaves the GAATW wondering how much time and energy these visitors have to visit a sex worker.
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Comments
It's best to watch Olympic sports on a big screen TV in your home.
Local hookers will be busier than a bee in a bonnet, and if Olympic organizations could EVER get ground transportation right, there'd be even more time to play the oldest indoor sport in the land.
And lets talk about how this government has done everything to ensure these women end up on the street because the facts are there. Rumor is your can get sex for as little as a tonnie as overheard a young girl offer her services for that amount.
Children in BC are also heavily exploited so need to wait for the Olympics as its done a bang up job of creating the right environment. Desperate people do desperate things and one thing for sure in BC there is no shortage of the desperate as province has the poorest of the poor as they live in fear of being slashed, beaten, robbed, killed, shot, raped, poisoined, ticketed, burned,mutilated, stabbed, frozen, etc. As its certainly no friendly town as the disabled become daily prey along with the homeless as they have no safe place as they also find themselves ticketed, beaten, tasered and shot by as all part of the daily grind on the streets.
And what do the prositutes have to say about the police, especially the young ones? I don't think we want to go there as the pig farm squeels of discrimination.
The report shows us that those opposed to prostitution (the Abolitionists/Prohibitioists) are fear-mongering and presenting totally inaccurate nformation which isn't at all helpful.
As a pro de-criminalization advocate, I advocate for reduction of harm and the creation of healthy, safe and vibrant coimmunities for those involved in prostitution and those wishing to exit the sex trade.
Spreading lies as the Abolitionists do and as the GAATW reports points out in its report, has the effect of continuing to place female and male sex trade workers at risk of extreme violence.
We should all be joining hands to battle this violence, regardless of what side of the prostitution debate you are on, instead and quite sadle, the Abolitionists/Prohibitionists with their misplaced rhetoric and misguided actions continue to wreck havoc on the lives of those involved in the sex trade.
Hopefuly we will move forward to assist those wishing to exit the sex trade and lobbying to ensure a safer sex trade for those who choose this option.
Jamie Lee Hamilton
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If you want real numbers from honest research regarding decriminalizing prostitution, read through last year's exhaustively researched report from New Zealand's Prostitution Law Review Committee, issued five years after that nation decriminalized the sex business. It's not a panacea, but the mere fact that they won't be re-examining the issue for another ten years should tell you the fear mongering from the prohibitionists was found to have been nonsensical.