Justice Secretary denies World Cup "boosts" human trafficking

The National Secretary for Justice, Paulo Abrão, has denied the notion that trafficking in persons increases in times of large-scale events such as the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Speaking on Thursday (May 29) at the 4th International Symposium for Combating Trafficking in Persons, he reported that there are no official statistics suggesting the increase of trafficking in persons as a result of these events.

However, he conceded, this does not necessarily mean that sexual exploitation may not worsen on these occasions. The point is that not all recorded cases necessarily involve trafficking in persons. “We must clarify the population on that so that the urge to deal with the problem [trafficking in persons] does not get people to try to criminalize or restrict the activities of sex workers,” he explained.

The secretary said that the government does encourage initiatives and call to action, prevention, and awareness campaigns about human trafficking in large events. “So much so that we are actively engaged in initiatives that the Human Rights Secretariat has introduced to create a protective environment, especially when it comes to the exploitation of children in large events,” he said. These initiatives rely on the support of the state and local governments, ministries, Federal Police, and Public Prosecutors.

He quoted a survey by the Ministry of Justice in the border area that detected trafficking of indigenous people to work for drug delivery, and boys being recruited on false promises of playing for major soccer clubs. “This scenario is relatively new. We had actually heard of similar cases in other countries, but not on our borders. This raised a red flag for us to marshal our police forces,” he said, promising that specific cases will be investigated by the Federal Police.

Translated by Mayra Borges

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