In the Summer of 2010, as the government of South Africa readied its stadiums for their first FIFA World Cup, the countries’ street ministries, educators, and police readied themselves for an anticipated increase in human trafficking. A deluge of reports and campaigns convinced the public that between 40,000 and 100,000 women and children would be trafficked into host cities to meet the apparent i
ncreased demand for paid s*x. In response to this media frenzy, a number of international health, gender and development organizations, national governments, and NGO’s from around the globe invested substantial funds into rolling out anti-trafficking campaigns. With the popular consensus being that huge numbers of women and girls are routinely trafficked within and into South Africa for the purposes of s*xual exploitation, the issue would appear to be cut and dried, well deserving of global attention and immediate bold action. But a closer investigation of the issue reveals a much more complicated relationship between those that want to do good works and the actual issues they hope to address. Ultimately, the prediction of increased human trafficking was a gross overestimation based on unsubstantiated evidence. So why was it made and what was the effect? “Don’t Shout Too Loud” offers the harsh and unsettling theory that special interest groups are manipulating public policy in order to promote their agendas by inflating the scope of human trafficking. In doing so, they cause public panic and resources to be directed away from those who require the most help.
