Here's one story on it from CNN (emphasis added):
Volunteers try to dissuade young sex workers on Super Bowl weekend
(CNN) -- Volunteers are taking to the streets of Miami, Florida, this Super Bowl weekend to inform teenage girls of alternatives to working as prostitutes.
Just as Miami's hotels, restaurants and retail stores are seeing a bump in business for one of the biggest sporting events of the year, law enforcement and social service agencies say they are also witnessing a spike in trafficking of underage sex workers.
"Many social service agencies and law enforcement agencies recognize that there was an increase of victims of trafficking during last year's Super Bowl," said Regina Bernadin, Statewide Human Trafficking Coordinator for the Florida Department of Children and Families.
"That correlates with research that whenever there's a convention, a concert or a large event, traffickers will bring girls to the area to serve the influx of visitors," she added.
Girls and young women, as well as their pimps, come from as far as New York and Texas to meet the increased demand, says Brad Dennis, director of search operations for KlaasKIDS Foundation, which is spearheading the outreach effort.
"It's just that party culture," Dennis said. "Super Bowl is an entertainment event and everyone wants to come down and party and when you throw that mix into an area with lots money to spend, it's a traffickers' playground."
Due to the clandestine nature of underage sex trafficking, it's hard to track the exact number of girls who are brought in for the Super Bowl and other big events. But a look at online escort listings gives some clues, Dennis said.
One free online site offered 38 ads for Miami on January 16, but more than 200 on Saturday night, he said. It was impossible to tell how many of the advertised escorts might be underage.
On less high-profile weekends in Miami, Trudy Novicki, Executive Director of Kristi House, said her organization looks at the number of reported runaways as an indicator of how many girls could be working in the sex trade.
"We know that a very high percentage of runaways will end up being approached by a pimp within 72 hours of hitting the streets and they will be prostituted in order to survive on the streets," Novicki said. "So we know there is an extremely high correlation between runaway juveniles and underage prostitution."
Kristi House is also helping to coordinate the Super Bowl weekend outreach, Novicki said.
The profile of a typical runaway cuts across socio-economic lines, Novicki said, but many of them leave home to escape some form of abuse.
In an effort to reach those girls, state and local law enforcement agencies are teaming up with social service agencies to coordinate nighttime outreaches to girls on the streets.
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The epidemic of underage sex trafficking isn't contained to Super Bowl weekend. An estimated 100,000 girls in the United States are under the control of a pimp or trafficker, according to Shared Hope Intermational, a nonprofit that works to combat worldwide sex trafficking.
It's a reality that groups like KlaasKIDS, StandUp For Kids and Kristi House encounter daily, Ameen said.
"The common perception is that the girls enjoy it, they make money, they're independent or they do it by choice. But when you work with young people selling their bodies, it's not a choice. It's a way to survive," he said.
"I don't want the idea to go away when Super Bowl ends. The reality is that it's more concentrated on Super Bowl weekend, but they're still out there come Monday morning."
This makes me recall people who have voiced the opinion that prostitution should be legalized. I see, however, a strong parallel between prostitution and slavery. Would these same people advocate for reinstating slavery in this nation, too? Prostitution proponents don't want to consider the factors that push girls and women into trafficking their flesh -- childhood abuse at home. Why not focus attention on that?
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