There were 7,621 cases of human trafficking reported in the U.S. in 2016, the last year for which yearly totals are available. In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel-hubs with large immigrant populations, notably California, Texas, Florida, and Georgia. Illinois ranked 9th out of the 50 States with 296 reported cases of human trafficking during 2016.
The issue of human trafficking has gained national attention due to cases involving high profile individuals such as prominent investor Jeffrey Epstein and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Human trafficking is prevalent in the hospitality industry, particularly at hotels. Businesses in the hospitality industry are prime territory for sex traffickers, because they can take advantage of the privacy and anonymity offered to guests, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Hotels and motels are obvious examples, but sex trafficking also can occur at theme parks, cruise ships, resorts, and nightclubs. The Polaris Project has recorded 3,300 cases of sex trafficking in hotels over a ten-year period. For this reason, federal and state specific laws are law are being implemented, which are taking aim at curtailing sex trafficking in the hospitality industry.
Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), hospitality business owners can be held civilly and criminally liable for allowing sex trafficking to occur on their property. The law allows the federal government or a survivor to bring a case against the trafficker, but also against any entity that financially benefited from his or her victimization and knew or should have known that the activity was a violation of human trafficking law. Notably, under federal law, buyers of sex are considered traffickers. Therefore, a hotel can be held liable to the victim if an employee rents a room to a trafficker or a buyer and the employee knew or should have known that the room would be used for a commercial sex act State laws, such as a newly passed law in Florida, also directly impact the hospitality industry. This new Florida law requires hotels and other lodging establishments to provide annual training on human trafficking awareness to housekeeping employees and those who work at a front desk or reception area where guests ordinarily check in or out.
A concerted effort must be made at your place of business to eliminate sexual trafficking and mitigate your company’s liability. The first step is to train your employee on identifying general indicators of sex trafficking which include:
Your employee must also be trained on how to act when they suspect a situation of human trafficking. Employees are recommended to: 1) Do not at any time attempt to confront a suspected trafficker directly or alert a victim to your suspicions, (2) Call 9-1-1 for emergency situations—threats of violence, physical assault, emergency medical needs, etc. (3) Follow your corporate protocol, such as by notifying management and security. (4) Call 1-866-DHS-2-ICE (1-866-347-2423) to report suspicious criminal activity to federal law enforcement. Highly trained specialists take reports from both the public and law enforcement agencies. (5) Submit a tip at www.ice.gov/tips or get help from the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC), call 1-888-373-7888 or text HELP or INFO to BeFree (233733).
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]]>Earlier this month, the Philadelphia hotel Roosevelt Inn, its corporate parents, its New York management company, and an individual owner/manager of the hotel, were sued for allegedly allowing trafficking of sex involving a minor to take place on the hotel’s premises. The case – the first of its kind invoking Pennsylvania’s recently-amended human trafficking law – raises an abundance of difficult legal and ethical questions regarding hotels’ legal responsibilities for and obligations concerning their guests’ conduct, and how to meet those responsibilities while also respecting guests’ privacy.
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants, “individually and/or by and through their actual or apparent agents, servants and employees,” “knew or had constructive knowledge” that their premises were being used for the sexual exploitation of the plaintiff, identified as “M.B.” The complaint alleges a number of potential indicators for sex trafficking at the hotel, implying that those red flags should have tipped the defendants off to the tragedy of M.B.’s alleged circumstances – indicators such as men lingering in the hall outside the plaintiff’s room, older men accompanying her in the hotel, M.B. being treated aggressively, M.B. exhibiting fear and anxiety, cash payments for her room, regular refusal of housekeeping services, and M.B. having few or no personal belongings in her room and dressing in a “sexually explicit manner.”
The complaint asserts causes of action for negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and a count styled “Negligence: Violation of Pennsylvania Human Trafficking Law, 18 Pa. C.S.A. § 3001, et. seq.”
Civil liability. The Roosevelt Inn complaint’s reference to the Pennsylvania Human Trafficking Law reportedly represents the first time that that law has been invoked in a civil lawsuit. Although plaintiff M.B. does not directly frame it as a separate cause of action, opting instead to invoke the sex trafficking law generally as a component of a negligence theory, the Pennsylvania law includes a provision that has the potential to create civil exposure for hotels whose premises have been used for prostitution. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3051(a)(2)(i) provides for civil liability for anyone who “profit[s] from” any sex trade act. In the case of a defendant, like a hotel, who “provides goods or services to the general public,” the law would require the plaintiff to prove that the defendant “knowingly markets or provides its goods or services to” a trafficker. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3051(b)(1). A federal law similarly provides for civil liability for “whoever knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value from participation in a venture which that person knew or should have known was engaged in [human trafficking].” 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a).
Under the federal regime, receiving a financial benefit when one should have known that one’s co-venturer was engaged in trafficking is enough to create exposure. (Under Pennsylvania law, the conduct must be done “knowingly”; which means “aware” that one’s conduct is of a particular nature, that particular circumstances exist, or that “it is practically certain” that one’s conduct will cause a particular result, 18 Pa.C.S. § 302(b)(2)). It seems likely, then, that cognizance of the sorts of red flags listed in the Roosevelt Inn complaint – men lingering in halls, regular refusal of housekeeping services, checking in with few or no personal belongings, etc. – could be sufficient to create civil liability under either Pennsylvania or federal law. Other potential indicators of trafficking identified by the Polaris Project, an anti-human trafficking organization, include:
Criminal liability. Both Pennsylvania and federal law also create the potential for criminal exposure for hotels and their affiliates and employees who do not adequately respond to prostitution on their property. The federal statute makes it a criminal offense to “benefit[ ], financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture” that harbors a person, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that he or she is a victim of sex trafficking. 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(2).
The Pennsylvania law is similar, establishing criminal liability for anyone who “knowingly benefits financially or receives anything of value from any act that facilitates” an act of sex trafficking. 18 Pa.C.S. § 3011(b). Pennsylvania law also includes a separate provision that specifically creates criminal liability for any “business entity” that “knowingly aids or participates in any violation of [the sex trafficking law].” 18 Pa.C.S. § 3017(a). Violation of this provision can also lead to penalties of up to $1 million, revocation of the entity’s charter or authority to do business in the state, or forfeiture of assets or restitution. Id.
While hotels may have a duty to prevent any form of human trafficking on their premises, that battle comes with a set of potential risks. Hotels are also under strict legal and ethical privacy obligations, and a misstep in service of even the most well-intentioned anti-trafficking agenda could lead to privacy blunders.
Hotels are at risk for legal action if identifiable information about their guests is distributed inappropriately. In one case that made headlines last year, sportscaster Erin Andrews was awarded a $55 million verdict after she sued a hotel that had revealed to another guest which room was hers, and that guest then surreptitiously filmed her through her door’s peephole. In an effort to avoid those risks, and protect guests’ privacy, hotels may have policies regarding when and how guests’ names and other identifiable information can be used, may seek to limit staff with access to identifiable information about guests to those with a need to know, and may take other reasonable precautions.
Combine these privacy concerns with the fallout from a poorly-executed attempt to react to suspected trafficking on the hotel’s premises, and the risks become clear. A call to law enforcement, even if not overheard, could generate a difficult-to-control flurry of activity involving many people, including staff and non-staff, and potentially even affect other guests. This activity could result in exposure of personal information about the suspect guest, potentially including some of his or her most sensitive information, such as information about visitors to the guest’s room, sexual activity, and the like. Such revelations, if ultimately determined to be unjustified, could lead to serious exposures for the organization. This is particularly so in an age of social media when there is little opportunity to control the rapidity and breadth of the spread of sensitive information. And if information memorializing staff’s suspicions about guests’ conduct is stored electronically, a data breach – a huge and growing issue in the hospitality industry – could be even more devastating for those guests than it otherwise might be.
The best framework for safeguarding against and reacting to sex trafficking while avoiding privacy and other harms is a set of intelligent, well thought-out policies that address both concerns. These policies should be tailored to the particular organization’s size, capacity, and culture. Crucially, the policies must be consistently applied: the appearance that such policies are employed to the benefit or detriment of some guests, but not others, defeats their purpose and creates the potential for liability. Because of the importance of consistent application, good, effective training is a must.
Ultimately, hotels cannot eliminate the risk that their premises will be used for improper purposes, and difficult decisions will need to be made along the way. But careful planning and intelligent before-the-fact decision making can go far to help mitigate the risk.
]]>Taking the steps listed below will help you determine if the person sitting next to you in the airport or on your flight is possibly a victim or participant in human trafficking.
Airline Ambassadors International provides the following indicators that may indicate an individual is being trafficked:
Read more in Airline Ambassadors International’s Human Trafficking Brochure.
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]]>With the use of online classified ads, child trafficking has moved off the streets and behind the closed doors of local hotel rooms. Youth are targeted and manipulated by pimps who transport victims from city to city via U.S. owned airlines and buses.
Exploiters use hotel rooms as venues to abuse children, knowing that systems are not in place to identify and protect the victims. Air travel is also a primary means of transportation for child sex tourists– individuals who travel overseas to sexually exploit local children.
The Solution
In response, buyers of corporate travel are in a position to express their interest in working with suppliers that address human trafficking. They can also become members of the Code themselves.
Originally published on Sunday, 01 June 2014
1704 views at time of republishing
In addition to the physical surroundings, it is equally important for hospitality industry management and security professionals to ensure that they keep abreast of the latest intelligence in criminal and terrorism trends affecting their area of operations. These trends of course vary greatly depending on country and region. The overall criminal threat environment in general worsens as economic and political stability decline in a country. Similarly, the effectiveness of local law enforcement, including their training, readiness and wherewithal to address criminal trends in the domain is impacted by economic factors as well as the legal regime in place. What is viewed as a serious crime in some countries may go undetected or unaddressed-or addressed only on an ad hoc basis-in others.
Nevertheless, security personnel worldwide are facing increasing challenges in their ability to detect and deter sex trafficking and prostitution in hospitality venues. The problem is serious and not only affects the overall environment at a hotel or time-share community, but causes life-long physical and psychological trauma on the victims. Hospitality industry personnel are uniquely situated to provide credible “eyes and ears” to law enforcement in the effort to reduce sex tourism and prostitution and can become valuable partners in providing a safer environment for all.
Some tips for hotel operators and employees in detecting this type of criminal activity can include the following:
Of course, there may be logical and quite innocent explanations for many or all of the above factors on a given day in a particular hotel. Still, it is worth remembering that in general terms, those trafficking in humans for purposes of sex tourism or prostitution make frequent use of hotels as they afford a degree of isolation, anonymity and privacy.
If you suspect sex trafficking at your hotel, contact your local police department or the FBI. Most large departments have units or squads dedicated to detecting this type of criminal activity and are quite effective in establishing sophisticated operations to catch the offenders and to provide appropriate referral services to the victims. Your local department is a great resource for current intelligence and may be able to provide some training to your staff in the most recent trends in the phenomenon.
]]>From 2006 to 2011, members of an organized gang in San Diego ran a child sex trafficking ring of at least 16 girls out of various area hotels. At one hotel, staff members neglected to take any action to protect the long parade of children who were being ushered in to be raped. Furthermore, two members of the hotel staff permitted the gang members to use the hotel computer to post online ads advertising sex with the minors. Staff members also knowingly rented rooms for use in prostitution, charged higher room rates for rooms to be used for child sex trafficking and pocketed the difference, and warned the pimps if police were nearby.
Last month in Oakland, California, government officials sought to shut down two local limited-service hotels that have allegedly been hubs of prostitution and drug activity for several years. Officials said there have been numerous incidents of rape, kidnapping and violence – many involving victims as young as 14 who were forced to work as prostitutes.
In Orlando, a Florida man was arrested on charges of sex-trafficking last month at a full-service branded hotel. He was accused of selling sex with a 16-year-old girl and coercing a second young girl into prostitution who was “extremely scared” of disobeying him after he had physically abused her.
In December 2008, the ringleader of a sex-trafficking ring that spanned at least three states, was sentenced in federal court in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on federal civil rights charges for organizing and leading a sex-trafficking operation that exploited as many as 20 females, including minors. He admitted that he recruited minors to engage in prostitution; that he was the organizer of a sex-trafficking venture; and that he used force, fraud, and coercion to compel the victims to commit commercial sex acts from which he obtained the proceeds. According to the indictment, the defendant lured victims to his operation with promises of modeling contracts and a glamorous lifestyle and then forced them into a grueling schedule of dancing and performing at strip clubs and then forced the victims to walk the streets until 4 or 5 a.m. propositioning customers. The indictment also alleged that he beat many of the victims to force them to work for him and that he also used physical abuse as punishment for disobeying the stringent rules he imposed to isolate and control them.
What is sex trafficking?
Sex trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act is under the age of 18 years. Enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) made sex trafficking a serious violation of United States law. Sexual traffickers use psychological as well as physical coercion and bondage to force their slaves to remain compliant.
Not only is human sex trafficking slavery but it is big business. It is the fastest-growing business of organized crime and the third-largest criminal enterprise in the world. The majority of sex trafficking is international, with victims taken from such places as South and Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union, Central and South America, and other less developed areas and moved to more developed ones, including Asia, the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America. And it is this movement of victims from underdeveloped countries to more developed ones where hotels become initially exposed to sex trafficking.
Although anti-trafficking organizations can’t be sure how many people are forced into commercial sex work, the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking estimates that human trafficking is a $32 billion business worldwide, with $15.5 billion coming from industrialized countries.
Victims of trafficking are forced into various forms of commercial sexual exploitation including prostitution, pornography, stripping, live-sex shows, mail-order brides, military prostitution and sex tourism. Victims trafficked into prostitution and pornography are usually involved in the most exploitive forms of commercial sex operations. Sex trafficking operations can be found not only in highly-visible systems such as street prostitution, but also in more underground venues such as closed brothels that operate out of residential homes. Sex trafficking also takes place in a variety of public and private locations such as massage parlors, spas, strip clubs and other fronts for prostitution, including some hotels and motels. Unfortunately, it is these handful of lodging establishments who either permit and support sexual trafficking or tacitly “look the other way” that has created a negative image of hotels as an inviting environment for human sex trafficking to occur.
Domestic trafficking
Unfortunately, sex trafficking also occurs domestically. The United States not only faces an influx of international victims but also has its own homegrown problem of interstate sex trafficking of minors. Although comprehensive research to document the number of children engaged in prostitution in the United States is lacking, an estimated 293,000 American youths currently are at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The majority of these victims are runaways or “thrown-away” youths who live on the streets and become victims of prostitution. These children generally come from homes where they have been abused or from families who have abandoned them. Often, they become involved in prostitution to support themselves financially or to get the things they feel they need or want (e.g., drugs). Other young people are recruited into prostitution through forced abduction, pressure from parents, or through deceptive agreements between parents and traffickers. Once these children become involved in prostitution, they often are forced to travel far from their homes and, as a result, are isolated from their friends and family. Few children in this situation can develop new relationships with peers or adults other than the person victimizing them. The lifestyle of such youths revolves around violence, forced drug use, and constant threats. The average age at which girls first become victims of prostitution is 12 to 14. It is not only girls; boys and transgender youth enter into prostitution between the ages of 11 and 13 on average.
International victims and what they face
Victims of sex trafficking can be women or men, girls or boys, but the majority are women and girls. There are a number of common patterns for luring victims into situations of sex trafficking, including:
Sex traffickers frequently subject their victims to debt-bondage, an illegal practice in which the traffickers tell their victims that they owe money (often relating to the victims’ living expenses and transport into the country) and that they must pledge their personal services to repay the debt. Traffickers often take their victims’ money and identity documents, including birth certificates, passports, and drivers’ licenses to prevent them from being able to flee, secure long-distance transportation, or provide for themselves. If a victim has no ability to support themselves or escape, they become dependent on the trafficker to survive.
Sex traffickers use a variety of methods to “condition” their victims including starvation, confinement, beatings, physical abuse, rape, gang rape, threats of violence to the victims and the victims’ families, forced drug use, and the threat of shaming their victims by revealing their activities to their family and their families’ friends.
Victims face numerous health risks. Physical risks include drug and alcohol addiction; physical injuries; traumatic brain injury resulting in memory loss, dizziness, headaches, numbness; sexually transmitted diseases; sterility, miscarriages, menstrual problems; other diseases; and forced or coerced abortions. Psychological harms include mind/body separation/disassociated ego states, shame, grief, fear, distrust, hatred of men, self-hatred, suicide, and suicidal thoughts. Victims are at risk for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – acute anxiety, depression, insomnia, physical hyper alertness, self-loathing that is long-lasting and resistant to change (complex-PTSD). Victims may also suffer from traumatic bonding – a form of coercive control in which the perpetrator instills in the victim fear as well as gratitude for being allowed to live.
How hotels can respond
Hotels can take a number of steps to prevent and respond to sex trafficking. If you think you have come in contact with a victim of human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888. This hotline will help you determine if you have encountered victims of human trafficking, will identify local resources available in your community to help victims, and will help you coordinate with local social service organizations to help protect and serve victims so they can begin the process of restoring their lives. For more information on human trafficking visit: www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking.
The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism, also known as ‘The Code’ is a set of voluntary guidelines developed by ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Sex Trafficking, Tourism and Pornography), in cooperation with the travel and tourism industry. Hotels can adopt The Code as part of a strategy to help prevent what is arguably the worst form of sex trafficking – child sex trafficking. The Code has been signed by over 1000 travel and tourism companies including major hotel groups Accor, Carlson, Hilton, Wyndham and Millennium. These groups vary in the extent to which they implement it across their operations. Hotels can extend their implementation of The Code to other forms of sex trafficking.
Training of hotel staff is key. Hotel managers may never spot the signs of sex trafficking, but housekeeping and room service employees often know when something isn’t right. They are the employees that are in the guestrooms where much of the evidence of slavery or sex trafficking will be present. Train employees not just what to look for and to report indicators of exploitation to management in a timely manner, but educate all employees about the social and human costs of this horrendous exploitation. And remind them that the hotel’s reputation and perhaps its financial stability (and hence their individual job security), can be adversely impacted by the ongoing existence of such illegal activity.
Hotels can really be part of the solution to ending this systemic pattern of exploitation against at risk individuals. Remember, these are crimes being committed and these are people being mistreated. No respectable hotel should want to be associated with it.
]]>Nearly 21 million people around the world are victims of modern day slavery. In the U.S. alone, at least 100,000 of those victims are American children with another 200,000–300,000 at risk each year. In the past, traffickers sold their victims on the streets, but now they have moved their operations onto the internet and use technology to sell their victims. Traffickers move across cities and countries using air and ground transportation companies and use hotels as venues to abuse victims, without the knowledge of owners. The travel and tourism industry is one of few industries that come across these victims.
“As a global company and leader in the travel industry, it is our duty to bring awareness around the important issue of human trafficking,” said David Peckinpaugh, president of Maritz Travel. “Unspeakable acts against people are happening every day in areas in which our company, partners, suppliers, and vendors can play a role in identifying, reporting and bringing an end to an industry that has already claimed 21 million victims globally. Our partnership with ECPAT will help us educate our employees and partners, hopefully leading to the protection of many innocent children.”
As part of its efforts to help end human trafficking, Maritz Travel is launching a company-wide awareness program to inform employees of the important role travel companies have in protecting children. The company will create a policy against human trafficking, develop training for all employees, and encourage suppliers and partners to get involved with ECPAT-USA and The Code.
“Maritz Travel’s global reach within the travel industry will open the eyes of companies that can join them in putting a stop to human trafficking. We are happy to have Maritz Travel on board with The Code. I know it will make a difference,” said Carol Smolenski, executive director of ECPAT-USA, who was at the signing.
Maritz Travel is one of the first travel companies to partner with ECPAT in the fight against child sex trafficking. More than a dozen U.S. companies and organizations in the travel and tourism industry, including airlines, hotel companies, management companies, tour operators, and distributors have already pledged their support. For the full list of ECPAT-USA code signatories, visit http://ecpatusa.org/wp/what-we-do/tourism-child-protection-code-of-conduct/.
“It is my hope that Maritz Travel’s involvement in ECPAT will allow us to help educate others – suppliers, vendors and the industry as a whole – on the important role we all have in protecting children around the world,” said Peckinpaugh.
For more information about the Tourism Child-Protection Code of Conduct and how your company can get involved in combating child sex trafficking, visit www.ecpatusa.org.
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