They didn’t win any trophies. No one gave them rings or applause or invited them to speak on national talk shows the next day. The real heroes of the Super Bowl were not in?the stadium.
Young women volunteered to stand inside the life-sized doll box to raise awareness of the ways in which children are seen as commodities by sex trafficking perpetrators. Approximately 293,000 children in the United States alone are trafficked for sex?every year. The average age of a sex trafficking victim in this country is between 12 and 14 years.
Whether or not new sex trafficking victims are recruited for events like the Super Bowl have been highly debated, but the increase in numbers of sex trafficking victims within any city hosting the Super Bowl and other events that bring in large numbers of tourists with money to burn – whether or not they are paying for new victims – is easily proven. The most recent Super Bowl was no exception, as police arrested 570 johns and 23 traffickers before the game even started.
In an interview with The Huffington Post, Taryn Offenbacher, Shared Hope International’s communications director, said that the demonstration “allows us to have a conversation about how children are viewed as commodities” and that each victim inside each box is “is a real person no matter how they’re packaged.”
The issue of sex trafficking has received renewed attention lately with demonstrations like those by Shared Hope International as well as a three-part documentary aired on PBS entitled “A Path Appears.” The documentary explores sex trafficking both in the United States and abroad as well as domestic violence. A trailer for the documentary can be found below.
The Super Bowl may be over, but the issues of sex trafficking persists every day in our country and outside of it. To learn more, or to find out how you can help, please visit the webpage of Shared Hope International?and sign their petition to address issues of sex trafficking, which can be found here.
Watch the trailer for “A Path Appears” below:
