In the lead up to the Super Bowl, news report after news report have used the fear of prostitution to perpetuate what has long been shown to be an urban myth — the idea that there are intricate networks of sex workers that descend upon cities for large sporting events, a concept furthered by the argument that human sex trafficking follows the same path. Although the link between the Super Bowl and sex trafficking has been debunked, the myth continues, and leads to policies that end up harming many of the women city officials argue they are helping.
In the same way that race and class-based myths have helped to shape many harmful laws and policies for decades — such as drug war policies and welfare policies — prostitution myths are now used in ways that actually target some of the most marginalized populations in our communities.
During large events like the Super Bowl, city governments and local law enforcements prepare for what they argue will be a surge in prostitution and trafficking, dedicating tremendous resources to targeting everyone engaged in prostitution. They perform sweeps and arrests meant to “clean up” the host city’s streets in preparation for the arrival of guests.
Despite the massive law enforcement crackdowns, studies and data have shown that no significant increase in prostitution or trafficking has ever been found during large sporting events. But myths like Super Bowl Sex Trafficking help to conflate sex work and sex trafficking in popular imagination, making it harder and harder to talk about the needs and rights of women consensually involved in sex work.
Women With a Vision has a long commitment to fighting for basic human rights protections for street-based sex workers and their families, addressing the needs of women impacted by laws and policies that make them unsafe, and that put them at risk for violence, stigmatization, and marginalization. Through our NO Justice! Campaign, we fought to combat the criminalization of women in Louisiana engaged in street-based survival sex work, and this year we are launching a new program called Emerge, which will combine education, holistic healing, civic engagement, and life skills to help keep women facing prostitution charges out of jail.
“A large number of women we work with see themselves not as victims, but as survivors,” says WWAV Executive Director Deon Haywood. “When they make a choice to get involved in consensual sex work, it’s about them doing what they need to do to survive. Calling them victims robs them of their power. If we want to talk about helping women, we need to put more money into programs that can do just that, instead of supporting more criminalization. We put so much attention and money into supporting the Super Bowl trafficking myth, but no one talks about the needs of women who are consensually involved in sex work when they are arrested. Criminalizing sex workers is not the solution, in fact it causes more harm.”
“We are a society that isn’t providing for marginalized women,” Deon continues. “Criminalization blocks them from making any changes in their lives if they wanted to. It’s impossible to get a job with nine prostitution charges. Instead of locking women up, we need to find ways to give them tools to make their own decisions, in safe and healthy ways.”
WWAV believes that myths simply create bad policy, while further stigmatizing already marginalized populations. As a New York Times op-ed reported this week, “Remove the guise of ‘preventing’ human trafficking, and we are left with a cautionary tale of how efforts to clean up the town for a media event rely on criminalizing people, with long-lasting implications for those who are then trapped in the criminal justice system. If we continue to perpetuate fallacies like the Super Bowl sex-trafficking phenomenon, we will continue to perpetuate the harm caused by prostitution arrests in the name of helping victims.”
A recently leaked Amnesty International study on decriminalizing sex work illustrated this point as well. The report explains that conflating sex work with trafficking often results in coercive and overreaching interventions that can cause more harm:

“The conflation of sex work with human trafficking leads to policies and interventions which undermines sex workers’ sexual autonomy, and causes them to be targets of exploitation and abuse, as well as may enable violation of their human rights. The disproportionate focus on trafficking into forced prostitution by some governments also ignores the human rights violations suffered by people trafficked into domestic work, construction, agricultural work, or other forced work, in which they often suffer a range of violations, including exploitation and violence. It further ignores that some people who are trafficked into other forms of forced labour are often subjected to sexual abuse and violence. Amnesty International believes that human trafficking laws and policies should clearly reflect that trafficking is a crime and a human rights violation. By contrast, laws and policies on adult sex work should reflect that those who voluntary engage in sex acts, regardless of whether remuneration is involved, are exercising their autonomy, and as such, should be permitted to do so free from interference from the government.”

For so many of the women that WWAV stands with, the economic need that undergirds consensual survival sex work remains wholly unrecognized by a court system that either wants to brand them criminal prostitutes or sex-trafficked victims. But we are so grateful to be part of a global human rights community, guided by the truths of women who have been criminalized and understanding of the complex intersections of how they live their lives.