Gregory Mitchell is Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Williams College. He joins us to discuss his new book, “Panics without Borders: How Global Sporting Events Drive Myths about Sex Trafficking.”
There is a great panic about “sex trafficking” - an idea whose meaning has been expanded by evangelicals, conspiracy theorists, anti-prostitution feminists, and politicians. This is especially visible during events like the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games, when claims circulate that as many as 40,000 women and girls will be sex trafficked.
Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Brazil as well as interviews with sex workers, policymakers, missionaries, and activists in Russia, Qatar, Japan, the UK, and South Africa, Gregory Mitchell shows that despite baseless statistical claims to the contrary, sex trafficking never increases as a result of these global mega-events - but police violence against sex workers always does.