PR: Super Bowl Advisory: SAVE Urges Media to Assure Accurate Reporting on Sex-Trafficking Issue

Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

SUPER BOWL ADVISORY: SAVE URGES MEDIA TO ASSURE ACCURATE REPORTING ON SEX-TRAFFICKING ISSUE

WASHINGTON / January 24, 2020 – The Super Bowl, the nation’s premiere sports event, will be held on February 2. In previous years, media outlets have used the event to highlight the problem of sex trafficking, often providing misleading and inaccurate information. SAVE – Stop Abusive and Violent Environments – is calling on media outlets to assure stories about the connections between the Super Bowl and human trafficking are accurate and properly-sourced.

Media accounts of human trafficking often rely on portrayals of men who abduct vulnerable Latin American girls and force them into sexual servitude. Such portrayals are inaccurate because the most common form of human trafficking is forced labor (80% of human trafficking victims), not sex trafficking (20% of victims) (1). Additionally, in Central America and elsewhere, females are the most common perpetrators of human trafficking (2).

Sensationalist media accounts are also harmful because they ignore the vast majority of trafficking victims, they encourage the conduct of inefficient law enforcement “sting” operations, and they weaken the credibility of legitimate anti-trafficking efforts.

The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women notes, “Around this time every year we notice a spike in press coverage, especially in U.S. media, about a projected rise in trafficking for sex in whichever U.S. state is hosting the Super Bowl….there is no evidence to support the claim.” (4) A University of Minnesota report concludes, “available empirical evidence did not support a causal or correlative link between Super Bowls and sex trafficking.” (5) And University of Miami professor Kelli Lyon Johnson charges, “anti-trafficking awareness campaigns share many features with fake news and alternative facts.” (6)

SAVE urges media outlets to recognize that sex-trafficking is not the same as prostitution; to not promote false stereotypes about sex traffickers; and to assure that statements by law enforcement officials and advocacy groups are appropriately sourced. A Fact Sheet, “10 Facts About Human Trafficking,” is available on the SAVE website: http://www.saveservices.org/2020/01/fact-sheet-10-facts-about-human-trafficking/

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