In January 2024, the French administration declared that, ahead of the upcoming Olympics in July, they would set up a platform to report on the "risks of prostitution" in housing so that landlords can be warned, and sex workers can be evicted. In May, AirBnB, the online home rental platform, signed a convention with the French government to develop a guide to assist travellers during the Olympics in identifying signs of exploitation and in working with police and judiciary. These measures stem from the false moral panic that the Olympics will lead to an increase in trafficking for sexual exploitation.
This blog uses evidence from past mega sporting events to ask the question: is there a way to rewrite the script around these games where the fight against human trafficking for sex and other labour does not harm sex workers?
MISPLACED CONCERN
It is important to ask what perpetuates policies of increased policing, moral panic, and the notion that host cities will witness a rise in sex work and trafficking. Some research attributes this to the media strategy of “sex sells” as news. For example, one research shows that for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, media outlets speculated an increase of 20,000 forced prostitutes being trafficked into the area. Before the 2006 World Cup in Germany, this number had gone up to 40,000 women.
For the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the figure from media outlets of suspected trafficking victims at 40,000. Sex trafficking was expected to exceed its annual average. These claims of media outlets were not based on any evidence, and there is no follow-up on whether these predictions, in fact, materialised.
GAATW’s 2010 research, “What’s The Cost of a Rumour” refutes the sensational predictions and finds that instead of a rise, there is actually a drop in demand for sex work because paid sexual services are not affordable and such short-term events are not profitable for traffickers. The research also contradicts the assumptions that these events are attended predominantly by male fans, thus leading to an increase in demand for commercial sex and, hence, are a rife ground for trafficking. The evidence suggests that the fanbase widely includes, in large part, women and families.
In 2010, GAATW Canada’s research on possible increases in human trafficking during 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games revealed no trafficking cases were reportedly connected to the event and that there was no strong evidence of a significant spike in male demand for paid sexual services.
In London in 2012, brothel raids in five Olympic boroughs went up sharply compared with other areas. Sex workers were subjected to more severe criminal sanctions and policing, including being given extra bail conditions, such as curfews and orders to move out of areas. The Mayor of London reported that the number of cases during the Olympics was the same as in 2011: four.
In 2016, the policies put in place before the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro pushed many sex workers to different regions of the city. Research by Prostitution Policy Watch found several instances of police operations that closed sex work venues, arrested sex workers arbitrarily, and violated numerous of their human rights. This research, too, observed a decline in the demand for commercial sex and that the anticipated rise in trafficking did not materialise.
The above evidence points towards a hypersexualised trope built around mega-sporting events. The thread that remains common across these events is the high spending and resource allocation on prevention, which is carceral or persecutory in nature. The over-inflated figures gain a life of their own, purported by prostitution abolitionist groups and politicians who assume that ending sex work will decrease trafficking for sexual exploitation. At the same time, labour exploitation related to major sporting events is barely a point of contention or outrage by these groups, indicating the emotive and ideological nature of sex trafficking. Migrant rights and labour groups repeatedly raised concerns about trafficking, forced labour, and the death of workers connected to Qatar’s 2022 FIFA World Cup preparations. However, the media and anti-trafficking stakeholders often neglect these victims and forms of violence in favour of focusing on trafficking for sexual exploitation.
THE “RISQUE DE PROSTITUTION”: THE CYCLE REPEATS
Evidently, this sensationalism is cyclical and is repeated ahead of all mega-sporting events, including the upcoming Olympics in France. A report titled “Les Jeux Olympiques et Paralympiques: un confinement social pour les travailleuses du sexe” (“The Olympic and Paralympics Games: Social Confinement for Sex Workers” referred to as the JOP report), published by 17 non-governmental organisations specialising in supporting sex workers, highlights the “heightened repression and altered policing strategies targeting sex workers in France.” Citing GAATW’s “What’s the Cost of a Rumour” report, it reiterates that “Trafficking results from poverty, powerlessness, and limited economic options. The supply of trafficking victims is driven far more by these factors than by temporary fluctuations in demand for sex workers arising from sporting events.”
The JOP report points out that undocumented workers at construction sites for the 2024 Olympics went on strike for exploitative conditions of work. Similarly, the administration’s heightened concerns about exploitation do not extend to residents of squats and homeless people who have been evicted from Paris and relocated to the suburbs. Many of these residents are refugees with precarious living and working conditions, rendering them worse off than before. This contrast begs the question of whether the state-led intervention of “cleansing” the city of sex workers is made more palatable by the rhetoric of anti-trafficking.
In France, since 2016, sex work legislation penalises individuals who pay for sexual services. This movement to “end demand” emanates from an ideology that ignores the collateral damage borne by sex workers as a result of these policies, particularly for migrant or trans sex workers. The JOP report goes on to show how the term “pimping” (which is criminalised in France) often conjures up a violent man, but this is, in fact, deeply flawed. As per the 2016 legislation, the legal definition of pimping includes “helping, assisting, or protecting the prostitution of others.” This definition affects sex workers who assist each other because it categorises them as “pimps,” leading to fragmentation among workers.
The report goes on to highlight that the plan to address trafficking during the 2024 Olympics confuses tackling trafficking with clamping down on sex work. The authors are concerned that these repressive measures will trigger mass evictions of sex workers because most sex work takes place in apartments that are also their homes. The reporting of violence against sex workers will decline significantly due to the fear of losing an apartment or alerting the landlords. It report concludes that the fight against sex work will not lead to the identification of victims of sexual trafficking.
CONCLUSION
For over a decade, research has shown that predictions of increased trafficking around major sporting events are overstated and sensationalist. Policies that increase the policing and criminalisation of sex work during major sporting events have also been proven to increase the risk of violence and exploitation and reduce the earning potential of sex workers, while doing nothing to combat trafficking. It is not too late for the Government of France to learn from the previous mistakes made in London, Rio, Vancouver, and elsewhere and abandon this misguided approach. Furthermore, both anti-trafficking organisations and the state need to put an end to misplaced ‘rescue’ responses and recognise sex worker organisations as allies in addressing human trafficking in the sex industry.