...Nobody would mistake an increase in postings for domestic, construction and agricultural workers for evidence of a major nexus of forced labor. Despite this, law enforcement and journalists often classify all prostitution as trafficking, making it even harder to find reliable numbers.
Regardless of whether someone is engaged in sex work willingly or through coercion, it is still a criminal act in almost all parts of the country. As a result, efforts like those that precede the Super Bowl do little to aid victims, according to Elizabeth Ricks, an attorney who works with the Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois. "With everything illegal, it becomes this gray area, and what I'm seeing in my work is that the trafficking victims are really getting lost in the conversation," she said. "If we had decriminalization, the difference between consensual sex work and trafficking would be much more stark." When the type of labor is legal, like domestic or agricultural work, there is less discretion required of law enforcement to determine if someone is a victim unlike in cases of suspected sex trafficking. "It's the difference between sex and rape," Ricks said. "It would really become very clear that consensual sex work is not the same as having to perform labor under coercion or threat."
The use of "human trafficking" to refer exclusively to sex trafficking is yet another concern for advocates of trafficking victims. Forced domestic and manual labor are much larger problems, according to the International Labour Organization, and the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women points out that sporting events may draw other forms of trafficking—for example, the trafficking of workers to construct the playing grounds and lodging for events like the Olympics and the World Cup. Qatar's kafala system has been a focal point for human rights groups concerned about worker abuses during World Cup construction, and Human Rights Watch has documented abuses of workers during preparations for the Sochi Olympics. If there is an increase in human trafficking connected to sporting events, there is more evidence that it happens long before fans arrive, rather than catering to them.
