The NFL’s 55th Super Bowl kicks off in Tampa Bay this Sunday, February 7th, featuring the reigning Super Bowl champions Kansas City Chiefs (14-2) versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (11-5). This year’s game represents the first time a team has hosted the Super Bowl in their own city. While the big game makes for good entertainment, the Super Bowl also provides one of the most lucrative opportunities human traffickers and sex traffickers have to promote their dark, criminal trade. However, some see the Super Bowl as a different opportunity: To bring awareness to this great evil of our modern times. One such person is Kirk Cousins.
Outspoken Christian NFL quarterback Kirk Cousins, who plays for the Minnesota Vikings, took to social media to raise awareness regarding human trafficking. Cousins is part of Team Freedom, a pro athlete group with International Justice Mission (IJM) which is a global Christian organization that, according to their website, partners with local authorities to rescue individual victims of violence and restore survivors to safety and stability.
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Cousins told CBS News earlier this week, “I think about how fragile my boys are… and to think that anybody would take advantage of them or harm them, it makes my blood boil to think that does happen to young people all over the world in the tens of millions. It’s disturbing.” The Vikings quarterback explained operating in the shadows is how the traffickers get away with selling nearly 25 million people worldwide, 1 in 4 of whom are children.
Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins told CBS News that he thinks of his young sons in the fight against human trafficking https://t.co/UwB7cszUhm pic.twitter.com/r8R0bLLmNH
— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 2, 2021