As we prepare for football festivities, merchants peddle Super Bowl gear and human traffickers peddle people. Though human trafficking is endemic 365 days a year, it is especially rampant on Super Bowl Sunday. This week is the time for us to urge everyone — in the shadows of the Super Bowl or the streets of your hometown — to do your part in helping stop the scourge of human trafficking. 1/3 American women will be sexually abused during their lifetime. Vulnerability to human trafficking is far-reaching, spanning multiple different areas such as age, socioeconomic status, nationality, education-level, or gender. Traffickers often prey on people who are hoping for a better life, lack employment opportunities, have an unstable home life, or have a history of sexual abuse – conditions that are present in all spheres of society. For combined intimate partner and non-partner sexual violence or both among all women of 15 years or older, prevalence rates were as follows:

• Africa – 45.6%
• Americas – 36.1%
• Eastern Mediterranean – 36.4%* (No data were available for non-partner sexual violence in this region)
• Europe – 27.2%
• South-East Asia – 40.2%
• Western Pacific – 27.9%
• High income countries – 32.7%

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-pelosi/shining-a-super-bowl-spot_b_4676342.html

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/violence_against_women_20130620/en/