As the world prepares for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, governments and media outlets are once again sounding alarms about an anticipated surge in human trafficking tied to the tournament. Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a formal notice warning financial institutions about the “threat of human trafficking during the 2026 FIFA World Cup,” encouraging increased surveillance and monitoring around the event.
At the same time, a very different story is unfolding in Montreal ahead of the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix. Members of the Sex Work Autonomous Committee (SWAC) are organizing strippers to strike against worsening working conditions, excessive club fees, unsafe environments, and lack of labor protections during one of the city’s busiest tourism weekends. They are highlighting the urgent need to decriminalize and destigmatize consensual adult sex work.
Together, these stories highlight the disconnect between sensationalized trafficking narratives and the actual issues surrounding major sporting events. Public officials and media outlets repeatedly frame events like the World Cup, the Super Bowl, and Formula 1 as catalysts for trafficking crises, despite years of research showing little evidence that these events uniquely increase trafficking. A report by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women reviewing major international sporting events found no evidence that such events lead to measurable increases in trafficking. Researchers examining media coverage of the Super Bowl similarly found that 76 percent of print media coverage promoted a connection between the Super Bowl and trafficking despite a lack of empirical evidence supporting those claims.
Policing is often what, in reality, increases. More prostitution-related arrests may occur during these events because law-enforcement agencies dedicate additional resources to vice operations and public crackdowns, but that is not the same thing as evidence of increased trafficking. Researchers and advocates have repeatedly pointed out that heightened enforcement naturally leads to more arrests for prostitution offenses without demonstrating any unusual rise in trafficking cases themselves.
A major reason these myths persist is the ongoing conflation of consensual adult sex work with human trafficking. Reports, media coverage, and political rhetoric routinely blur the distinction between adults consensually engaging in sex work and people experiencing force, fraud, or coercion. “Fact or Fiction: Sex Trafficking, Sex Work, and Human Rights at the Super Bowl,” a report compiled by attorneys and researchers at Decriminalize Sex Work, Woodhull Freedom Foundation, and the SOAR Institute, found that the perpetuation of the “Super Bowl sex trafficking myth” relies on rhetoric that equates consensual adult sex work and trafficking, fueling moral panic and leading to policies that harm sex workers, trafficking survivors, and entire communities.
The sensationalism surrounding trafficking distracts from the actual harms connected to mega-events, which include labor exploitation, displacement, over-policing, and economic instability and reinforces the dangerous and deeply flawed idea that criminalization and policing are the primary solutions to exploitation. Trafficking panic narratives are repeatedly used to justify raids, surveillance, arrests, migration controls, and expanded law-enforcement powers. In practice, however, criminalization often creates the very conditions that make exploitation easier. When sex work is criminalized or heavily policed, workers are pushed into more isolated environments, less able to screen clients, made more vulnerable to abuse and fear interacting with law enforcement. Fear of arrest, immigration consequences, or child welfare involvement can force people into unsafe working conditions and make actual trafficking survivors less likely to seek help.
In Montreal, workers are not warning about trafficking rings descending on the city. They are demanding safer workplaces, fairer pay structures, and decriminalization in an evidence-based effort to reduce exploitation. The strike underscores that sex workers are workers, and the challenges they face during large events are often labor issues, not unique to sex work, though exacerbated by criminalization and stigma.
In Mexico, preparations for the 2026 World Cup are already raising concerns about displacement and gentrification. Advocates have warned that under the guise of “security,” “public order,” and beautification efforts for tourism, marginalized communities including migrants, street vendors, unhoused people, and sex workers are increasingly vulnerable to forced displacement from neighborhoods surrounding stadiums and tourism corridors. These patterns are common during international events, where governments seek to present polished global images while pushing poor and criminalized communities out of public view.
The stories emerging from Montreal and Mexico point toward a less sensational truth. The real story is one about labor rights, housing, migration, displacement, and the consequences of criminalization. If governments are serious about preventing exploitation during large international events, they should focus less on fear-based rhetoric and more on ensuring that workers and marginalized communities have access to safety, stability, legal protections, healthcare, and human rights.
