Sex work at the Olympics Games: report

Originally from Prostitution Policy Watch

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Once again, Rio de Janeiro has hosted a sporting mega-event, this time the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. And once again, the research teams of Prostitution Policy Watch went into the field (as we did during the 2014 World Cup) to accompany the changes these events would bring to our city’s commercial sexual markets. (You can find our Cup report, in English, here)

Here, you’ll find a press release briefly detailing our findings. The Olympic and Paralympic Games do not seem to have significantly increased sexual commerce, sexual exploitation, trafficking in persons or sexual tourism in Rio during the Games.

We are currently analyzing our data and we should have a more detailed report for distribution by the end of October.Prostitution Policy Watch is an extension project of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, hosted by the Instituto de Planejamento Urbano e Regional da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (IPPUR-UFRJ). Beginning in 2013, we have undertaken ethnographic and bibliographic research, documentary research, and various extension activities that contribute to widening the space for public debates and policy change regarding sex work, always giving pride of place in this process to sex worker activists who seek to have sex work recognized as a professional category.  We thus seek to circulate various meanings of prostitution in public spaces, seeking full recognition of the rights of sex professionals to the city and to their engagement in sex work.

Prostitution Policy Watch would like to thank ABIA for hosting us during the Games and for aiding us in preparing this release.