'Paleontological Institute at The University of Kansas'
Abstract
International mega sporting events require large construction and infrastructure projects to be completed in short amounts of time. Unfortunately, labor trafficking has become a means to complete these projects for the Olympic Games and World Cup. My research question asks whether or not certain types of governments (1) condone labor trafficking in order to appear developed by producing ostentatious mega sporting events or (2) use these international sporting events to strengthen their human rights platform. The importance of this topic stems from reports published by Human Rights Watch and several other NGOs. These organizations have found incidences of labor trafficking and severe exploitation of construction workers at Olympic and World Cup venue sites. There is also an overwhelming lack of research focused solely on labor trafficking at mega sporting events. In this thesis, I conduct a comparative case study analysis examining the rhetoric of the Brazilian, Russian, and Chinese legislation and compare it against investigative reports by NGOs at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, and the 2014 Brazilian World Cup. This paper does not have available empirical data to analyze; however, it represents an analysis of contrasting narratives and relies on information from human rights organizations, journal articles, newspaper reports, and legal documents from each country. I find that authoritarian governments condone human trafficking in order to appear more developed, while democratic countries use mega-sporting events to strengthen human rights in their country
