Sex Trafficking is Big Business at the Super Bowl

Video by Bryon Cahill
COURT HOUSE -– The Super Bowl is typically the most watched sporting event of the year in America. It also attracts the most gamblers, according to the Nevada Gaming Commission. Thousands of parties will be hosted throughout the country. And then there is sex.
According to law enforcement officials, there is a seedy side to the big game and that is a significant rise in sex trafficking each year in whichever city hosts the contest. This year, East Rutherford won the honors to host. Government leaders from the Garden State are out in front of the issue. On Capitol Hill this week, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a N.J. Republican who co-chairs the House Anti-human Trafficking Caucus said, “We know from the past, any sports venue — especially the Super Bowl — acts as a sex-trafficking magnet.” Gov. Chris Christie, in an effort to raise awareness of human sex trafficking both tweeted and addressed the issue in his press conference.
Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor also took up the cause in a specially-convened conference held Jan. 30 in the Old Court House on Main Street. Taylor was invited to make the presentation by Mary Conley of the League of Women Voters and Suzanne Pelkaus, Dottie Pearson and Karen Weis of the American Association of University Women. Taylor was joined by Detectives Ashlee E. Marriner and Daniel Holt of the Prosecutors Office.
Marriner told the audience of two dozen or so that human trafficking (another name for slavery) was the most rapidly growing crime in the country. “It is second only to drugs and ahead of gun running,” she said, explaining that the product (i.e. human beings) can be used over and over, whereas drugs are a onetime deal.
In 2012, New Jersey established a task force to stay ahead of the curve of sex trafficking by setting up and conducting training for a large percentage of police and law enforcement officials from the entire state. They were trained to identify the signs of sex trafficking and how to react to them. As a result of this, local law enforcement officials contact entertainment and hospitality establishments such as hotels and motels in Cape May County and make them aware of the tell tale signs of sex trafficking.
Marriner also said that law enforcement has been helped in its efforts by legislation pushed by Christie that enhances the penalty for trafficking, making it a crime of the first degree that calls for a 20 years to life jail sentence. A New Jersey statute also provides for civil penalties and permits a trafficked victim to testify via closed circuit television.
Holt stated that in addition to contacting hotels and motels he also reaches out to non- government organizations such as the league and the AAUW to educate them on the problem. He makes sure that “every police officer in Cape May County is trained” on the subject of human trafficking.
The New Jersey Attorney General obtained a $350,000 grant from the federal government to provide care for the victims. The federal government has set up a special visa program for those victims trafficked into the country illegally. Holt said that the “Innocence Lost Task Force” (a.k.a. Super Bowl Task Force) focuses on the sexual exploitation of juveniles.
Marriner said that a large percentage of those trafficked are American juveniles in their early teens and not persons imported from other countries. Marriner explained that one fifth of all the pornography was made by exploited children. There are also many runaways who are coerced into the “trade.” Traffickers and pimps take advantage of the opportunity and often recruit and force young girls into prostitution. Many who are coerced, come from vulnerable backgrounds.
According to David Bastone of Not For Sale, “Large sporting events tend to increase the demand for prostitution.” Interested buyers from the hundreds of thousands of tourists who come for such events want young, fresh faces. Holt noted that law enforcement monitors such sites as Craig’s List and stated he saw ads for services ranging from $200 to $4,000 a night. But supply is a reaction to demand and ads on Backpage (another classified web site) went up 11 fold in this past week in areas near the game’s venue, which is only 11 miles from New York City. And while most people are coming to watch football, some are coming to have sex with women, men and even children.
The best defense, Taylor told the audience, is an educated public. He passed out posters in English and Spanish as well as fact sheets with a heading of “Red Flags.” If you suspect someone may be a slave “Call. Call. Call.” Holt said. “Even if it is only a little thing to you, a small bit of information may be just what the law enforcement folks are looking for to put a case together and make an arrest and save someone from a life of horror.” In 2012, at Indianapolis’ Super Bowl, an anti-trafficking group handed out 40,000 bars of soap, and saved two victims from trafficking. As Smith stated “What if that were your child?” Or mother, brother, sister , wife or girlfriend. What if it were you?
This year, law enforcement at every level is making an all out push to eradicate this scourge of this 21st century version of human slavery.
If anyone suspects anything, contact the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office at 465-1135 or call the Attorney General’s hotline at 855-363-6548. Online, you can visit www.NJHumanTrafficking.gov or call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).
To contact Helen McCaffrey, email hmccaffrey@cmcherald.com.