Miami-Dade County is getting ready to host next year’s Super Bowl. And with the Super Bowl and other huge sports events, come concerns about an uptick in human trafficking -- which is already a problem for Florida.
Just last week in Jupiter, a sex-trafficking sting aimed at breaking up these kinds of operations saw the arrests of several people, including Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots-- the team that just won the this year's Super Bowl. Kraft was charged with solicitation of prostitution.
"Events like these bring big crowds," says Miami Herald reporter Sarah Blaskey. "Anytime there's a big crowd that's there to party, there's also a section of that crowd that's looking for a very particular type of entertainment -- sexual entertainment."
But young women swept up into a nightmare of forced prostitution isn't the only type of human trafficking local officials are worried about. In recent years, the Arab country of Qatar has been under scrutiny for the forced labor of Nepalese migrants as it prepares to host the 2022 World Cup.
Before the start of last month's Superbowl, federal authorities arrested 33 people on sex trafficking charges in Atlanta.
Blaskey says Miami-Dade has created a task force of police officials and non-governmental agencies to guard against human traffickers seeking to work undetected during next year's Superbowl festivities.
