When you think of the Super Bowl, you think
of obvious things – such as football, cheerleaders, wings and new commercials.
But what if I told you about something not so obvious, but bigger that is occurring on game day. What if I told you that the Superbowl is one of the largest human trafficking hubs in the U.S, that’s what Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said during the 2011 Superbowl.
The large crowds, tourists coming from out of state, and many different people coming into the city make large sport events like the Superbowl, and other sport championship games, like golf, a magnet for victims of human trafficking, such as forced sex slavery.
When we think of human trafficking, we might think of other countries in which children, men and women are kidnapped and forced into other regions and countries for the unthinkable.
In reality, it is happening in our very own backyard here in the U.S.
Large sport events attract these criminal rings, they also exist in places you might not even think of, nail salons, small towns, and cities alike across the U.S. A residential brothel might be in your own neighborhood.
Human Trafficking is not only about prostitution, but it is also includes – slavery, forced child labor, among other things.
“Human Trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons: by the threat or use of kidnapping, force, fraud, deception or coercion, or by the giving or receiving of unlawful payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, and for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor.”
How does this happen? Many cases involve missing people, in which men, women and children are kidnapped for the sole purpose of human trafficking, in other cases people are deceived into false employment opportunities, which turn into forced prostitution or forced labor, and in other cases family or family friends sell children or men and women for money whether it is to pay debt or for other reasons.
The U.S. Department of State estimates that between 17,000 – 60,000 men, women and children are trafficked into the United States every year (600,000 to 800,000 worldwide.) Of these, 80 percent are girls and women, and 70 percent are forced into sex trade.
What can you do? Get informed and visit www.humantrafficking.org to find out what you can do to help.
Sources:
The key words in the headline roped me into your story and wow did this subject matter hit me like a ton of bricks. To know these events are happening around large sporting events like the Super Bowl is absolutely heartbreaking. These types of stories will never get traction because of the potential loss in revenue, interest and support. Those that should be taken into account are those kidnapped and placed into these human trafficking rings. They have no say in their future and without support from others they will most likely not recover from the unspeakable hardships. I enjoy the way this piece was written and it captured my mind without going into significant detail. I started reading because it was a sports-related opening and headline but I kept reading because I was engrossed in the story. The use of the quote works in the middle of the story and the transitions from the Super Bowl into a worldwide epidemic are seamless.
ReplyDeleteGreat read. Informative, and you hooked me with the title and first couple paragraphs. As you mentioned, you tend to only think of human trafficking as a "third-world issue". But, it's prevalent even here in the states. The one line that I re-read, and am still unclear on is, "...they also exist in palces you might not even think of, nail salons, small towns, and cities..." Nail salons has an impact on the reader, and small towns to a lesser degree - but cities is a place that you might expect. Just makes me wonder if there are any other every-day businesses like a nail salon that could have been cited. Just a thought, but again, really enjoyed your style and content!
ReplyDeleteSuch an interesting piece! Not at all what I was expecting, but very informative. You had a lot of factual information in your writing sample as well as quotes. While it is impossible to avoid long sentences in quotes, I think something to look at is the length of a few of your sentences. A few times I stumbled over the length of sentences, specifically the third paragraph. Some parts could possibly be split to multiple sentences, without losing the integrity of the paragraph. Rather, it gives the reader a break in between facts and a longer pause than a comma.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I really enjoyed reading this!
This is a great topic Nikita. Your tweet on the post was great with the #HumanTrafficking hashtag. You take a little longer in the piece to get to your powerful headline. Recognize this tendency to want to bury the lead. Mystery is good for a mystery, but you want to draw eyes and keep butts in the seats too.
ReplyDeleteJust say it.
The Super Bowl is one of the largest human trafficking hubs in the United States.
That’s your thesis and your headline and your link.
Notice I capitalized Bowl as is the standard. Always check on those things.
Your thesis is really the best thing here. The rest of this is a draft. You are pulling ideas together, which is fine for a draft, but you need more meat. You take two paragraphs to get to the headline. Then this is your first real paragraph…
The large crowds, tourists coming from out of state, and many different people coming into the city make large sport events like the Superbowl, and other sport championship games, like golf, a magnet for victims of human trafficking, such as forced sex slavery.
Always give examples in threes—that’s great—but you don’t really have three examples.
Large crowds, large crowds from out of town, and diverse crowds from out of town, make large events…
That’s really what you said. And there are large crowds everywhere. You don’t explain why the Super Bowl is the Mecca of slavery.
A writer does not bury the lead, because once the reader is hooked, he or she will still read the article to see if the writing can back up that mind-blowing headline. The point of the article is the proof.
Your argument becomes broad. You start discussing brothels and nail salons and defining #humantrafficking, while I’m still wondering about the Super Bowl.
Lastly, you send me to a link, letting someone else do the work.
A killer thesis like yours deserves further mind-blowing statistics, unbelievable firsthand stories, and some real investigation as to how the Texas AG could make that claim.
Still, solid effort. Thanks for posting.