Excitement is building as football fans prepare for the Super Bowl February 5. What many people may not realize is that there’s a darker side to the Super Bowl. Did you know that the Super Bowl is a huge time for human trafficking to occur?
At On Time Logistics, we are committed to fighting human trafficking. On Time Logistics is helping to eradicate this problem by raising awareness about the issue. We first shared our commitment to this issue on our blog and in our newsletter last August.
How big is this issue and what does it have to do with the Super Bowl? The media often states that the Super Bowl is the largest sex trafficking event in the nation. While many researchers counter that there is no data to support these claims, the Super Bowl host city Houston has taken steps to fight human trafficking surrounding the event. The City of Houston Anti-Human Trafficking website has vast information about the issue with a special page about the Super Bowl.
While there may not be much hard data to support claims about human trafficking around the Super Bowl, there are plenty of statistics that discuss this dire problem. People often think that human trafficking does not affect most state-side Americans. However, roughly 1.5 million people are trafficked within the United States each year. The most at risk individuals are children, but human trafficking also involves adult men and women. Of the genders, women make up 80 percent of human trafficking victims.
The number of prostituted children in the United States is 26 times that of the number of players in the NFL, NBA, and the MLB combined. This is an appalling number!
How can you get involved? We are working to raise awareness of the issue through the organization Truckers Against Trafficking and you can join us in that effort. TAT’s various programs all work to train drivers and truck stop employees to recognize and report trafficking. Not involved in the trucking industry? We hope you seek out other organizations that work towards stopping human trafficking.