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The World Cup Attracts Tourists & Traffickers

Maya Richard-Craven |
June 16, 2014 | 5:22 p.m. PDT

Contributor

The more sinister side of the World Cups finds sparks increases in sex trafficking in Brazil (Twitpic/RTE News)
The more sinister side of the World Cups finds sparks increases in sex trafficking in Brazil (Twitpic/RTE News)

There are more slaves in the world right now than at any other time in history. According to the U.S. Department of the State, an estimated 600,000-800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year. 

Big sporting events like The World Cup lead heightened demands for sexual services and labor, significantly increasing levels of human trafficking. With the start of the FIFA-sponsored games last Thursday, however, several organizations and political leaders have made efforts to prevent spikes in trafficking and prostitution surrounding the games.

In 2006, CBS noted that the risk of children getting trafficked increased by 30-40 percent during the FIFA tournaments in Germany and South Africa. 

Recent reports from CBS found that incidences of child trafficking will still likely increase by 30-40 percent at the 2014 World Cup, as traffickers efforts are most successful in nations like Brazil where prostitution is legal.

Since 2009, the age of consent in Brazil has been only fourteen years old. 

With an estimated 600,000 people traveling to Brazil for the World Cup, experts predict that yet another World Cup will become “a breeding ground” for sexual exploitation and broken promises.

READ MORE: Mimi Chakarova's Documentary "The Price of Sex" At USC 

Thiago, a retired pimp, told Girish Gupta and Olivia Crellin of TIME magazine that, "70-80 percent of the clients at his São Paulo brothel were tourists." 

Supposedly, 4,000 women currently await customers from across the globe, just for a chance to earn a few extra dollars or a pack of cigarettes.

While about 120,000 prostitutes legally work in the state of Rio, running a brothel or pimping service is not legally permitted. 

Bars in the Vila Mimosa, or “the City of Tender Love,” are often used as covers for underground sex dens and strip clubs. 

READ MORE: Human Trafficking Coalition Gears Up In Fight Against Gangs, Backpage.com 

Some women and children became prostitutes only last week, as a direct result of incoming tourists who are visiting Brazil for the games.

Women working in Rio’s red light district are even offering discounts for British customers because “they have traveled so far.” 

"I know there will be a lot more customers for the World Cup,” a 20-year-old prostitute from Rio De Janeiro told journalists at the Mirror. Brazilian women turning to prostitution for World Cup - and England fans are their biggest goal  “I use the money to support my family, pay the rent, the bills. We are waiting for the English, I cannot speak their language, but I will communicate with the way I know best.”

Favalas, or Brazilian slums, are epicenters for human trafficking, drug trades and prostitution. 

Recife, a city located on the North East coast of Brazil, is particularly notorious for its deadly prostitution ring in which women and children are forced to inhale glue, commonly referred to as “cola,” which causes feelings of numbness, dizziness and loss of appetite. 

READ MORE: Sex Trafficking Is No Foreign Matter 

Mark Williams-Thomas, a writer for the U.K. Mirror, actually flew to Brazil to report live from the center of the trafficking and prostitution. He witnessed young children waiting for customers in large crowds of soccer fans and spoke with several young victims. 

Lorisa, a thirteen-year-old girl, explained that sniffing glue, "helps me cope with the violence and danger on the streets.”

“The children go with the men because they are high on drugs or need more money to buy drugs,” a forty four-year-old woman who had been homeless for the past 37 years told Williams-Thomas. “They use drugs to numb the pain of the sexual abuse, become addicted then need to sell themselves over and over again to raise the money." 

Cola” is not the only drug trafficking victims get hooked on. like many other nations, Brazil is currently experiencing a crack epidemic—one that has steadily increased with the deception and distribution of young men and women. 

One of the most upsetting aspects of human trafficking, is that most victims are young children who have been tricked into forced labor and prostitution. Traffickers are opportunists, looking to take advantage of young boys and girls who often believe their traffickers will act as sources of love and salvation.

In the case of sporting events like the Brazil World Cup, drug lords and traffickers make their way from across the world, promising young women and children “of hope for a better life” abroad, only for the victims to find that they will just be bought, sold and shipped off into slavery, yet again.  

Take the Slavery Foot Print Quiz to find out how many slaves work for you. 

Contact Contributor Maya Richard-Craven here.



 

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