Sex Buying Isn’t a Game Campaign

March Madness

Rights4Girls has launched a nationwide billboard campaign to combat sex trafficking and sex tourism surrounding the NCAA March Madness Basketball Tournament. This coordinated effort hit multiple cities hosting the basketball games, with the goal of shining a light on the buyers fueling the multi-billion dollar illicit sex trade. The campaign enjoyed great success and media coverage from the initial rounds to the Final Four in locations throughout America – including, Atlanta, Cleveland, Denver, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Newark, Philadelphia, Providence, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, and St. Louis.

The goal: expose the realities of the sex trade and the harms inflicted on vulnerable women and girls by sex buyers.

In 2025, while our campaign was running, 8 sex trafficking victims were recovered in San Antonio, TX during the 2025 Final Four weekend, underscoring the power of what can be achieved when nonprofits, first responders, and the community come together.

During another past Final Four weekend in Minneapolis:

47 men were arrested for felony solicitation of a minor,
11 individuals were arrested for sex trafficking and promoting prostitution (aka pimping), and
28 sex trafficking victims were recovered, including a child victim.

Over 90% of women in the sex trade report being shot, raped, strangled, beaten, burned, stabbed, or punched, with most of that violence being committed by sex buyers.⁴ Survivors also report being urinated, defecated and ejaculated upon, forced to have unprotected sex, and subjected to the insertion of foreign objects into their bodies.⁵

Our report reveals buyers as wholly aware and indifferent to signs of violence, trafficking, and desperation in the people they purchase for sex.

IT'S MADNESS to think sex buying won't land you a penalty

Our Buyers report highlights sex buyers in their own words from around the country and reveals them to be unrepentant in their misogyny. As one sex buyer from Milwaukee put it:

"Find them, f*** them, forget them. This is the gold standard for men’s spiritual health."

But buying sex is not a game; it can actually lead to serious consequences that result in loss of employment or professional license. It can even lead to the loss of family law rights related to child custody, child visitation, or adoption.

Despite the media’s attempt to normalize prostitution, more states are increasing penalties for patronizing sex. In recent years, 8 states have made sex-buying a felony.

Eight additional states have all passed laws imposing fines that fund survivor services and/or mandating education classes for sex buyers.

Over a dozen other states are considering bills that could result in felonies, increased fines, or income-based penalties that finance victim services. It can even constitute a federal crime to purchase sex from a minor under the age of 18 or a victim of sex trafficking, so Buyers Beware!

Did you know that women and girls in the sex trade face extreme violence: 68% suffer from PTSD as severe as levels suffered by combat veterans and victims of state torture,¹ while 61% experience traumatic brain injuries.² What's even more troubling is that many, if not most, prostituted women first entered the sex trade as children.

For a more in-depth look into the mindset and attitudes of sex buyers and how they fuel the sex trade, as well as proven solutions to end exploitation and trafficking, check out our report, Buyers Unmasked: Exposing the Men Who Buy Sex & Solutions to End Exploitation.

We joined the guys from Epik Project on their Masculine Wilderness podcast to dispel myths surrounding sex buyers, the demand for commercial sex that fuels sex trafficking, and how so many men and boys in the US report loneliness.

Campaign Impact & Reach

Rights4Girls is making an extraordinary impact nationwide with powerful sports-themed billboards advocating for safety and protection for survivors of sexual exploitation and trafficking. Featured prominently in over a dozen cities nationwide, these striking messages are raising awareness and driving conversations in the public and media about the harms of sex-buying and how it fuels sex trafficking.

Further demonstrating the impact of our campaign and all that can be accomplished when the community and advocacy comes together- 8 victims of sex trafficking were recovered during the NCAA Final Four in San Antonio. This operation just highlights the reality of sexual exploitation and sex trafficking that often accompany such large-scale events.

Explore the campaign’s reach with media coverage below and a gallery of our billboards in action!

Watch & learn about the campaign in the host cities:

To read more about sex buyers, including some well-known cases, read here:

Learn more about efforts to decriminalize “sex work” and why so many survivors prefer the Survivor Model:

For more reports and data related to sex trafficking, sexual violence, justice involvement, and/or the sex trade, please see our Resources page.

Sources

¹ Melissa Farley et al., “Prostitution and Trafficking in Nine Countries: An Update on Violence and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,” Journal of Trauma Practice 2, no. 3–4 (2004): 33–74, https://doi.org/10.1300/J189v02n03_03.

² Farley, Melissa; Banks, Martha E.; Ackerman, Rosalie J.; and Golding, Jacqueline M. (2018) “Screening for Traumatic Brain Injury in Prostituted Women,” Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence: Vol. 3: Iss. 2, Article 5. https://doi.org/10.23860/dignity.2018.03.02.05

³ Potterat, John J et al. “Mortality in a long-term open cohort of prostitute women.” American journal of epidemiology vol. 159,8 (2004): 778-85.

⁴ Jody Raphael and Katie Feifer, “Get the Facts: What We Know about Sex Trafficking, Sexual Exploitation, and Prostitution in the United States,” (World Without Exploitation, January 2020), https://www.equalitymodelus.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Get-the-Facts- January-2020.pdf.

⁵ Id.