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On 11 March 2025, the Sov­er­eign Order of Mal­ta, in part­ner­ship with Mission89, host­ed a two- hour webi­nar to launch the 2024 Glob­al The­mat­ic Report on Sport Traf­fick­ing. The event brought togeth­er dis­tin­guished speak­ers, experts and stake­hold­ers to dis­cuss the exploita­tion of vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in the sports indus­try, the find­ings of the report and action­able rec­om­men­da­tions to com­bat sport trafficking.

The aim of the webi­nar was to present the key find­ings of the Glob­al The­mat­ic Report on Traf­fick­ing in Sport, pro­duced in part­ner­ship with Lough­bor­ough Uni­ver­si­ty, in order to raise aware­ness of human traf­fick­ing with­in the sports indus­try, to pro­mote dia­logue on legal and pol­i­cy respons­es, and to encour­age col­lab­o­ra­tion between stake­hold­ers to pro­tect vul­ner­a­ble athletes.

Prof. Michel Veuthey, Ambas­sador of the Sov­er­eign Order of Mal­ta to Mon­i­tor and Com­bat Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons, and Ms. Leri­na Bright, Founder and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Mission89, opened the webi­nar by high­light­ing the increas­ing preva­lence of human traf­fick­ing in sport. They stressed the impor­tance of defin­ing and address­ing traf­fick­ing in sport as a unique form of exploita­tion. Ms. Bright pre­sent­ed an overview of the sig­nif­i­cance of the Report.

Mr. Kevin Hyland OBE, for­mer UK Inde­pen­dent Anti-Slav­ery Com­mis­sion­er, pro­vid­ed insights into the glob­al chal­lenges of human traf­fick­ing and high­light­ed the urgent need for pol­i­cy reform and stronger enforce­ment mech­a­nisms. Mr John-Michael Lan­der, an Amer­i­can sur­vivor advocate,

shared his per­son­al expe­ri­ence of exploita­tion in sport. His can­did and mov­ing tes­ti­mo­ny high­light­ed the psy­cho­log­i­cal and social impact of traf­fick­ing on young athletes.

Dr Olawale Maiye­gun, for­mer Niger­ian Ambas­sador, and Dr Monique Emser, Pro­fes­sor at the KwaZu­lu Natal Uni­ver­si­ty in South Africa, pre­sent­ed the inter­na­tion­al legal frame­work and basic con­cepts of sport traf­fick­ing. They dis­cussed the lack of a clear legal def­i­n­i­tion of sport traf­fick­ing, the research method­ol­o­gy and find­ings of the report, and the the­o­ret­i­cal frame­work that guid­ed the study.

Dr. Kata­ri­na Schwarz, Asso­ciate Direc­tor at the Rights Lab, Not­ting­ham Uni­ver­si­ty, analysed the mech­a­nisms of traf­fick­ing, cross-bor­der impli­ca­tions and reg­u­la­to­ry gaps. Her pre­sen­ta­tion also includ­ed a typol­o­gy of sports traf­fick­ing, case stud­ies high­light­ing dif­fer­ent forms of exploita­tion, and the need for improved reg­u­la­to­ry frameworks.

Dr Olawale Maiye­gun made rec­om­men­da­tions that focused on strength­en­ing anti-traf­fick­ing laws in line with the UN Traf­fick­ing Pro­to­col, improv­ing vic­tim pro­tec­tion mea­sures and enhanc­ing coop­er­a­tion between gov­ern­ments, sports organ­i­sa­tions and law enforce­ment agencies.

The pan­el dis­cus­sion was mod­er­at­ed by Ms Leri­na Bright. The pan­el includ­ed experts such as Hon. Jared Oke­lo, Mem­ber of the Nation­al Assem­bly of Kenya, and Ms Marie-Lau­re Lem­ineur, Head of Safe­guard­ing, FIFA. The dis­cus­sion focused on the prac­ti­cal imple­men­ta­tion of the report’s rec­om­men­da­tions, chal­lenges in enforc­ing anti-traf­fick­ing poli­cies in sport and oppor­tu­ni­ties for cross-sec­tor collaboration.

Par­tic­i­pants engaged in a dynam­ic dis­cus­sion, shar­ing per­spec­tives and propos­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to com­bat sports traf­fick­ing. Prof. Michel Veuthey sum­marised the key take­aways and reaf­firmed the com­mit­ment of the Sov­er­eign Order of Mal­ta and Mission89 to con­tin­ue advo­cat­ing for stronger pro­tec­tions against sports trafficking.

The webi­nar suc­cess­ful­ly high­light­ed the urgent need for tar­get­ed inter­ven­tions in the sports indus­try to com­bat human traf­fick­ing. Future steps include fur­ther dis­sem­i­na­tion of the report’s find­ings, advo­ca­cy to pro­mote pol­i­cy change and con­tin­ued stake­hold­er engage­ment to imple­ment the pro­posed rec­om­men­da­tions. The event rein­forced the impor­tance of inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion in address­ing human traf­fick­ing in sport and pro­vid­ed a roadmap for future action.

The webi­nar gath­ered 60 live par­tic­i­pants from 25 coun­tries: Argenti­na, Aus­tria, Benin, Burk­i­na Faso, Cameroon, Cana­da, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go, France, Ire­land, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Moroc­co, Nether­lands, Nige­ria, Nor­way, Poland, Sier­ra Leone, South Africa, Spain, Switzer­land, Trinidad and Toba­go, Ugan­da, Unit­ed King­dom and Unit­ed States of America.

Access the Glob­al The­mat­ic Report HERE and the video record­ing of the webi­nar HERE, with sub­ti­tles in sev­en lan­guages. Each of our 45 past webi­na­rs was viewed live or via video replay by an aver­age of 440 peo­ple from 180 countries.