Airport staff trained as new frontline in battle to stop Super Bowl sex traffickers

With more than 200,000 visitors expected to arrive for Sunday night's American Football championship game between the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers in neighbouring Arlington, Texan officials fear that thousands of sex workers, many of them under-age girls, will be working the streets.

The anti-trafficking mission taking place in the skies over the lone star state is part of a wider operation to keep out those looking to profit from the seedy side of the showpiece event.

"We hope we're wrong if we see a suspicious situation," said Nancy Rivard, director of the Washington DC-based Airlines Ambassadors International charity that organised a training day for dozens of flight attendants, pilots, boarding staff and other airline workers in conjunction with a Dallas anti-trafficking group. "But if we're right, we might just save a child's life."

Among the "red flags" airline workers have been taught to spot include children appearing distant from travelling companions purporting to be their parents, boarding aircraft carrying few personal items, appearing paranoid, undernourished or ill-treated or unwilling to make eye contact.

Experts teaching the class included members of Unicef's Brigade for the Protection of Minors, who have experience of the sexual exploitation of children in the impoverished island of Haiti.

"It's about looking at who's getting on the flights, what looks unusual, and being the eyes and ears in the sky," Ms Rivard said.

"If anything looks wrong the pilot can call ahead and have the plane met at the airport. It's important that everyone talks to each other to make it work."

The sex trade has become an integral part of the Super Bowl economy in recent years as the event attracted increasing numbers to its host cities.

Last year's game in Miami saw thousands of vice girls working, with business so good, according to some reports, that pimps were hiring buses to ferry the women around.

Many expect similar activity ahead of Sunday's game.

John Walsh, the owner of an adult bar in Kennedale, near Dallas, announced last week that the area needed an additional 10,000 "strippers" to meet demand, a figure denounced by a rival as "bull". Even so, the FBI and other law enforcement authorities in Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and surrounding cities believe that the threat from the sex trade warranted the creation of a task force to counter prostitution, especially involving children."The Super Bowl is a magnet for child-sex traffickers," said Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general.

"It can have a tremendously positive economic impact on North Texas, we just want to ensure human traffickers don't share in the profits."

Police in Arlington booked hoardings near the Dallas Cowboys' stadium showing flashing images of men convicted for hiring sex workers, accompanied by the message: "Dear John, you never know, this could be you!"

Officers were also monitoring employment websites such as Craigslist for Super Bowl advertisements from pimps and prostitutes, while the Dallas-based group Traffick911 enlisted several former American Football stars to promote its I'm Not Buying It campaign aimed at raising awareness of the scale of human trafficking.

BOOMTIME EVENT:

DESPITE the darker side of the Super Bowl, the game will bring a massive economic boost to areas of Texas hard hit by the recession.

Some experts suggest visitors will spend more than $200 million (125m) this week. The average price of a ticket is $900, up 12.5 per cent on last year, and rooms at every four and five-star hotel in Dallas were sold out weeks ago. A clue to the strength of the recovery comes from some of the parties being staged in Dallas this week.

Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson will host a VIP-filled Super Bash tomorrow, for which tables are selling at $15,000 (9,300). And the Playboy Bunnies Party has returned after a two-year break.