First Reports of World Cup-Related Sex Trafficking?

The issue of human trafficking around the rapidly approaching World Cup in South Africa this year has been controversial to say the least. Some groups have predicted 20,000-plus victims will be brought in or snatched from South African streets. Opponents have claimed that these predictions are gross exaggerations intended to prosecute women who are voluntarily in prostitution. The true amount of trafficking during the games is still yet to be known, but reports of women forced into sex in association with the World Cup have already come to light.

Anti-trafficking activist Javu Baloyi of the South African Commission for Gender Equality has already seen an increase in the number of women trafficked into the country for sex. He cites cases where women were promised jobs, but when they arrived in the country they were drugged and held in private homes, apparently in preparation for the influx of tourists coming to watch the month of soccer games. The porous border between Zimbabwe and South Africa is an especially easy route for traffickers. Already, desperate Zimbabwean women engage in prostitution at the border, and some advocates worry they will be at additional risk for being kidnapped and forced into brothels.

These reports, while far from hard data, are possibly indicative of what a human trafficking uptick might look like during the World Cup. So far, police have not been able to prove that the increase of women being brought to South Africa for sex is being driven by the games. It's also important to note, here, that perhaps the greatest risk of trafficking is posed to South African children, who will be on a month-long school holiday, but many of whom might have parents who still need to work.

If anyone in South Africa is reading this, I'll reissue the same plea I issue around all major sporting events: please, please collect good data. We really need to understand the issue of when and how human trafficking happens around events in order to address it. And to do that, we need people figuring out how to count the victims, the traffickers, and the buyers. Estimation, anecdotal stories, and blind guesses just aren't enough. I really hope that out of the World Cup this year, we can come up with a better understanding of how organized sporting events affect human trafficking.

Photo credit: Jennifer Su