Mission 89 campaigns are designed to raise awareness, mobilise institutions, support safeguarding reform, and give the public clear ways to take part in athlete protection. Each campaign combines storytelling, educational materials, stakeholder participation, digital tools, and public calls to action. They are built not just to inform, but to influence how people, organisations, and institutions behave.
A global Declaration and campaign uniting sport federations, clubs, agents, governments, and corporate partners in a shared commitment: zero tolerance for child trafficking, exploitation, and abuse in, through, and around sport.
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On 30 July 2025 – World Day Against Trafficking in Persons – Mission 89 launched The Line We Don’t Cross in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and United Through Sports (UTS).
One year later, on this same day, we mark not just an anniversary, but a growing global movement. Sport federations, National Olympic Committees, clubs, agents, and corporate partners across every continent are joining the call to protect young athletes.
The work continues. The line remains clear.
Sport has given young people around the world a path to opportunities they could not have imagined. But that same power and promise can be exploited.
Children and young athletes are recruited, transported, and exploited under false promises of professional careers. This is sport trafficking, and it happens in three distinct ways:
IN SPORT
Athletes exploited directly within clubs, academies, or through agents – via debt bondage, exploitative contracts, or forced labour.
THROUGH SPORT
Sport used as the lure. Players are promised trials, transported across borders, then exploited in unrelated industries or abandoned without documentation.
AROUND SPORT
Exploitation on the fringes of sport – forced labour in event infrastructure, trafficking around major tournaments, exploitation in sports merchandise supply chains.
These are not isolated cases. They are patterns that repeat across sports, regions, and recruitment pathways.
The United Declaration on the Elimination of Child Trafficking in, through and around Sport is a public commitment to zero tolerance for exploitation, trafficking, and abuse in sport.
Organizations that sign the Declaration commit to five pillars:
Signing the Declaration is not an admission that trafficking exists within your organization. It is a proactive statement of values, a public commitment to keeping sport safe from exploitation, and a demonstration of leadership within the global sport community.
Launched at Westminster Hall on 1 July 2026, in partnership with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK and co-authored with Loughborough University, the Global Thematic Report on Sport Trafficking (GTRST) is the first comprehensive evidence base examining trafficking in, through, and around sport globally.
The Report’s typology – developed by Mission 89 – now underpins policy discussions from the IOC to national federations to the UN Human Rights Council.
The Line We Don’t Cross is built on the understanding that safeguarding sport requires everyone across the ecosystem:
No single organization can safeguard sport alone. Protection depends on collaboration across the entire ecosystem.
Step 1: Join the Campaign
Show your support with the campaign logo, follow our work, and help raise awareness using #TheLineWeDontCross.
Step 2: Review the Declaration
Engage with our consultation process. Provide feedback that helps shape the Declaration’s implementation across your sector.
Step 3: Sign the Declaration
Make a public commitment to the five pillars of safeguarding, ethical recruitment, and survivor support.
Step 4: Implement with Our Support
Access Mission 89’s full toolkit: safeguarding policy templates, codes of conduct, training modules, and technical assistance – tailored to your organization’s context.
Mission 89 is the world’s only NGO dedicated exclusively to combating human trafficking in, through, and around sport. Founded in Geneva in 2017.
Strategic Partners:
Before every transaction, every trial, every contract: ask who found this athlete first, what they promised, and what they expect in return.
That question is where protection begins.
This game has given young people paths to lives they could not have imagined. We are asking every organization in sport to help keep it that way, and make it even better.
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#NotInOurGame is Mission 89’s educational outreach campaign and safeguarding toolkit, providing clubs, academies, and sports organisations with practical resources to identify, prevent, and respond to trafficking and exploitation. The campaign has become a cornerstone of Mission 89’s educational work.
SafeSport Pathways is Mission 89’s EU Erasmus+-funded project protecting young migrant athletes from exploitation. See the dedicated SafeSport Pathways page for full content.