Sex Trafficking and the Super Bowl

We at Rescue America congratulate the Rams and Bengals for their efforts in making it to the Super Bowl - what an exciting season for both teams!

At Rescue America, our mission to free the sexually exploited compels us to both celebrate big for the teams that made it, but also speak truth as we empower freedom in the lives of those sexually exploited across the United States.

While the Super Bowl brings in tens of thousands of avid sports fans from across the country to a single city, all coming together to cheer on their favorite team, the nature of this large national gathering also draws in a crowd for a darker reason.

The influx of visitors for the Super Bowl creates one of the largest events for sex trafficking in the United States each year…

*Human trafficking is the fastest-growing and second-largest criminal industry in the world, generating over **$150 billion of annual illegal profit, and every year during the big game, traffickers capitalize on the opportunity to sell their victims in the midst of a high spike in traffic to that city.

According to the Institute for Sport and Social Justice, there is continually an increase in reports of trafficking cases surrounding the Super Bowl. For instance, throughout It’s A Penalty’s 2021 Super Bowl campaign, over ***146 arrests were made related to human trafficking in the game’s host city, Tampa Bay.

Because victims are sent across the nation to meet demand, every year when the Super Bowl is approaching, ****employees of airlines, rideshare companies, and hotels in the host city are trained on what to look for and how to respond.

Although sex trafficking is an illicit business, it is still a business!

Traffickers and pimps will respond to increases in demand the same way that any business will - they will send victims wherever the demand is greatest. In the fight against sex trafficking, the transient nature of the population is fundamental to understand - this is a national problem, and we are compelled to fight it on a national level.

Recently, we received a call to our rescue hotline from Jessa, who had been coerced to travel across state lines to meet the trafficking demand in a different city than where she lived. We were honored to be a voice of hope in her story, empowering her to embrace freedom and offering her support as she began the process of returning home.

This is why Rescue America is an organization with a national reach. In 2014, our organization began in Texas, as Rescue Houston, and we began our outreach and service to survivors in Houston and the surrounding areas. As we continued to grow, we quickly began receiving hotline calls from survivors in cities all across the country - showing us that as survivors were receiving our rescue hotline number in Houston, they were sharing it with others in the industry as they would travel from state to state. 

After receiving so many calls from outside of areas where we distribute our hotline, we heard the need in the voice of survivors, and as an organization that recognizes that all humans are created in the image of God, we couldn’t say no. This compelled us to become Rescue America, expanding our service and resources nationwide.

As trafficked victims move from city to city, we as a rescue hotline have an obligation to have a national reach, because we don’t want to leave anyone behind…ever.

We believe God has a redemptive solution for everyone. In 2021 alone, we received calls from survivors in over 100 cities across the United States, and we were honored to have been able to help them take steps towards freedom, no matter where in the country they were.

While many nonprofits focus on serving survivors in specific cities and regions (in fact, we have many partners that execute with excellence in local communities) the nature of our mission is why we are national. We exist to rescue revive and empower the sexually exploited through a 24/7 hotline and emergency response, and our years of serving this population have confirmed its transient nature.

This week, as we distribute our rescue hotline number through our Outreach Hub partners, we might call an ad originally posted in Houston, but the transient nature of the population might mean that the survivor is in Los Angeles for the ”big game” this weekend. When we serve a survivor in Los Angeles, we could be serving a survivor who was just being exploited in our own neighborhood last week.

While the nature of a gathering like the Super Bowl creates an increase in human trafficking cases that week and in that city, heightening the public’s awareness of this issue surrounding the event, human trafficking is still happening in every other city in our nation, every other day of the year. The good news is - there is something you can do to make a difference. If you feel called to be a part of rescuing survivors out of the darkness of sex trafficking, please consider becoming a Rescuer now!

With your gift of $25 per month or a $300 single gift, you will be a Rescuer of a survivor of commercial sexual exploitation. Your gift will provide for all of the immediate, tangible needs of a survivor as she exits the life of sexual exploitation - things like food, luggage, toiletries, and immediate transportation costs.

Provide hope and freedom to someone who desperately needs it, and become a Rescuer today!

*The United States Department of Health and Human Services (USDofHHS)

** International Labor Organization (ILO)

*** It’s a Penalty 2021 Campaign IMPACT REPORT 

**** It’s A Penalty LA SUPER BOWL XLVI CAMPAIGN