By Melanie Jones: Subscribe to Melanie's RSS feed
February 3, 2012 12:45 PM EST
The New York Giants and the New England Patriots aren't the only ones prepping for Super Bowl Sunday: so is the Congregation of the Sister of St. Joseph of Cleveland.
The Ohio-based congregation is joining ten other orders in an effort to increase awareness of and stop sex trafficking during Super Bowl XLVI weekend in Indianapolis.
WKYC TV reports that the nuns are working with some 220 hotels within a 50-mile radius of the Super Bowl stadium to help managers identify victims of sex trafficking.
'Someone has to take this on'
"We want to share with the traffickers that we will be watching," Sister Marilyn Nickol told WKYC.
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The sisters of St. Joseph have been planning to travel to Indianapolis, In. for the Super Bowl since the NFL opened up training camp last summer.
"We thought, someone has to do this," added Sister Anne Victory, the education coordinator of the Collaborative to End Human Trafficking. "Someone has to take this on."
The federal government estimates that $15 billion is generated each year in sex trafficking in the U.S. And Super Bowl weekend is the largest underage sex trafficking event in the country annually.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimated that some 10,000 sex workers were brought into Miami for the 2010 Super Bowl. These are predominantly adult women who assert that they have voluntarily become sex workers.
At that same Super Bowl, however, 133 underage prostitutes were arrested by police, and the National Center estimates that hundreds are likely to have slipped under the radar.
Sex Trafficking At Super Bowl
According to Forbes reporters, Indianapolis has responded to the disturbing figures by taking a "one is too many" approach to Super Bowl XLVI.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Attorney general Greg Zoeller and child advocates including Shared Hope International President Linda Smith have banded together to try and keep Indianapolis safe for sports fans and underage victims alike.
On Monday, Gov. Daniels pushed through legislation that makes it a felony to recruit, harbor or transport a child under 16 with the intent to engage in prostitution, and gives much higher penalties for anyone who sells or transfers custody of a child.
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