The Demand for Evidence: Human Trafficking for the Purposes of Sexual Exploitation During the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games

East Tower 

Since the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, international mega sporting events have been targeted as highly fertile environments for human trafficking, particularly for the purpose of sexual exploitation. This claim is premised on the assertion that traffickers will capitalize on an expected spike in men's demand for paid sexual services during such events by trafficking countless numbers of women into the local sex industry. Prior to and during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, such arguments, which predicted an 'explosion in sex trafficking,' were integral to a number of highly vocal NGO-sponsored public awareness and prevention campaigns.

My presentation will focus on the results of a study conducted by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) Canada in 2010, which investigated possible increases in human trafficking during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. We conducted 61 interviews with key informants across various sectors in Vancouver and beyond, and the vast majority of interviewees maintained that there was no verifiable evidence of trafficking in persons for the purposes of sexual or labour exploitation linked to the 2010 Olympic Games. In addition, as of the end of August 2010, no trafficking in persons cases connected to the event had reached the level of investigation. In addition, like the 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cups, for example, there was also no strong evidence to suggest that the forecasted significant spike in men's demand for paid sexual services materialized during the Vancouver Olympic Games. Finally, some of the key recommendations that emerged from the research continue to be relevant given the persistence of unsubstantiated claims about the link between human trafficking and mega sporting events and the repeated re-emergence of anti-trafficking campaigns and interventions that have very negatively impacted sex workers, migrant workers, and other marginalized groups.