Super Bowl XLV takes place this weekend in Dallas and the Dallas-Fort Worth area will attract multitudes of footballs fans: the majority just looking for a good party. Unfortunately, the Super Bowl is also a hotbed for people who traffic sex with underage women, according to MSNBC [1].

The article cites a 2007 report by Shared Hope International [2]that found up to 300,000 girls between the ages of 11 and 17 lured into the sex trade annually in the United States.  Most of those are runaways who are then beaten, drugged, and raped to force compliance with their pimps.

According to the article:

"At previous Super Bowls, pimps hired cab drivers to turn their vehicles into mobile brothels," said Deena Graves, executive director of child advocacy group Traffick911.

Up to 10,000 adult and under age girls have come to previous Super Bowls, said Jerry Strickland, communications director in the Texas attorney general's office, who acknowledged that precise figures are hard to gauge.

MSNBC reports that about 50 girls were "rescued" at the last two Super Bowls, several of whom registered on the Center for Missing and Exploited Children's website.

Advocates, law enforcement, and the airline industry are working together to fight the sex trafficking, states the article. Several of the airlines are holding training sessions to help employees spot signs of human trafficking and the group Airline Ambassadors International is working with flight crews.

Additionally, ABC News reports [3] that Texas is putting together a task force made up of federal, state, and local agencies to fight human trafficking in the area surrounding the Super Bowl.

♦ Photo by Alienevil/WikiMediaCommons [4]

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