Getting money to prevent sex trafficking even if there isn’t any: London Olympics
10 May 2012 in trafficking by | 13 comments | 
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Those who wish evidence were the basis for social policy have been endlessly frustrated and annoyed by the survival of the myth saying sex trafficking – forced prostitution – increases enormously on the occasion of major sporting events. Despite enough evidence to convince most people that there is no such surge (see SIDA’s report on the 2006 World Cup and SWEAT’s on the 2010), it’s obvious that evidence doesn’t matter where the fear of hidden crime is constantly threatened. In other words, if the police haven’t found many women in chains, the victims must be too well hidden, which justifies further money for more intense policing.
Some NGOs against human trafficking do now acknowledge that there’s no proof that trafficking increases around big sporting events. But they like to argue that their own efforts to prevent trafficking are the reason – Ta Da! There must be a name for this kind of logical fallacy.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has set up its own anti-trafficking programme called UN.GIFT, which now gives funds to a lot of the people sustaining this kind of scare-mongering. Stop the Traffik (sic – why have they spelled it like this?) is one, here maintaining that
campaigns countering human trafficking and increased law enforcement, before and during the events, are necessary to prevent the trade. International sporting events can increase human trafficking due to the short-term increased demand for prostitution, construction work, and all other sorts of labour.
So the funding gravytrain tootles along. But now they have a new justification for their activities:
prestigious sporting events can play a central role in attracting attention to the issue of human trafficking, and can function as an opportunity to increase engagement across communities. Most importantly, as there is evidence of continuous human trafficking in London and across the entire UK, we should use this opportunity that the London Olympics presents us with.
So now, whether there was ever going to be any increased trafficking or not, campaigns that worry people that their might be are doing a good job of raising awareness. In NGO-speak this is called prevention. If there is more self-serving silliness I don’t know about it.
With great solemnity, based on this absence of evidence, we find troops of volunteers ready to worry everyone in London about the hidden scourge. Here’s one (with funding from Stop the Traffik) in Tower Hamlets, one of London’s Olympic boroughs (meaning some Olympics activity actually occurs there). Do you wonder what these people will do?
This will involve running outreach sessions with local schools, hotels and faith groups using data gathered from borough-specific research, which volunteers would also be conducting. There will also be the opportunity to organise a local fundraising event to generate additional income and attract more volunteers from the local area.
I’d like to know how that research is being done. Meanwhile, the photo at the top shows a UN.GIFT box that’s going to be unwrapped during the games. (Warning if you click on that link that you are subjected to the soundtrack of a promotional video portraying cruelty.) The purpose is described as
to inspire visitors, both from the UK and abroad, to take action to stop the trade. . . a giant public art installation, which will demonstrate to people how victims of human trafficking can be deceived; beyond the promises of exciting opportunities that will entice people to the box, once inside, the stark reality of human trafficking will be revealed. . . family-friendly and will inspire people to advocate and end trafficking in their own communities.
This is all what happens when a fear (panic, myth) takes on a life of its own. Evidence that there is cause for such fear is simply irrelevant. Unfortunately, there are unsought side-effects, as police make raids and arrests of sex workers to show they are looking for traffickers and their victims. Thus x:talk’s call for a moratorium on arrests in London.
–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist
Tags: Europe, research, sports, trafficking
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“they like to argue that their own efforts to prevent trafficking are the reason – Ta Da! There must be a name for this kind of logical fallacy.”
Dunno about a formal name for it, but ‘the tiger-repellant rock fallacy’ works… http://www.criticalthinking.org.uk/tigerrepellantrock/
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I think the NGO reasoning may qualify as a post hoc logical fallacy (but it’s not exclusive of other kind of logical fallacies !) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc
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“Some NGOs against human trafficking do now acknowledge that there’s no proof that trafficking increases around big sporting events. But they like to argue that their own efforts to prevent trafficking are the reason – Ta Da! There must be a name for this kind of logical fallacy.”
I once compared it to that old vaudeville gag:
Straight Man: Why do you keep snapping your fingers?
Comedian: To keep the elephants away.
Straight Man: But there aren’t any elephants within a thousand miles!
Comedian: See how well it works? -
I shall be amused by the reaction of the denizens of Tower Hamlets to these wowser volunteers.
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What it reminds me of is the spate of spurious child sex abuse witch-hunts in the 80s and 90s (some involving allegations of satanism). Both were driven by an unholy alliance of fundamentalist Christians and extremist feminists (in the UK the sex trafficking moral panic was promoted by the Poppy Project when Labour were in government and the Salvation Army now the Conservatibes are in). The child abuse panic has had the effect of making us suspicious of any involvement of men with children, and authoritarian laws, like New Labour’s notorious vetting and barring scheme, followed. Aside from the ongoing harassment of sex workers, the persistent lying about sex trafficking at major sporting events implies that any large-scale gathering of men will necessarily be about the abuse of women. If it isn’t squashed, it will lead to similar changes in social attitudes towards men, and more authoritarian legislation.
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“they like to argue that their own efforts to prevent trafficking are the reason – Ta Da! There must be a name for this kind of logical fallacy.”
I believe it’s an “ad hoc” fallacy:
“X happens then Y happens, therefore X must have caused Y.”
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Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry was published by Zed Books in 2007 and is now available from Amazon on Kindle & as Audiobook as well as paper.
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