Introduction

Every January, we recognize National Human Trafficking Prevention month, reaffirming the commitment to protect and empower survivors and to bring an eventual end to human trafficking around the world.

Human trafficking is generally understood to be the recruitment, harboring, transporting, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through force, fraud our coercion, and has become the fastest growing enterprise in the world, creating a multi-billion dollar a year criminal industry.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) human trafficking website, almost every form of human trafficking intersects with public transportation at some point. Unfortunately, traffickers often utilize public transit buses and trains to move or relocate victims from one place to another to avoid detection or prosecution. This is primarily because public buses and trains are seen as more difficult to trace than personal vehicles and are low cost to the trafficker.  Don’t think it doesn’t happen in your area. The Polaris Project tracks reported cases and reports National Statistics for every state, DC and territory with startling results.

Many transportation programs have already started providing training and raising awareness to combat the issue across the country. Countless agencies are striving to do their part to assist with the growing problem and combating human trafficking.  Many modes of transportation have joined the battle to educate and create awareness within their communities.  From airports to bus stops, you see efforts to highlight this problem in some of the high traffic areas that human traffickers might frequent.  Many of these agencies are to be praised for their efforts to create training videos for their staff and others to help educate front line workers and transportation professionals, bus drivers, dispatchers, airline personnel, and others on the signs and possible threats of human trafficking.

Creating awareness of this issue is the start of effecting change.  You don’t have to be an expert to join the effort by offering this training at your agency. Human trafficking is occurring in startling numbers across the U.S., but human traffickers know no boundaries as this is a global issue happening across the world. Many times, this crime happens in plain sight, in public domains that you may frequent every week, possibly every day, from isolated truck stops to inner city bus hubs where human traffickers are on the lookout for their next victim.  Training by groups like Busing on the Lookout, Truckers Against Trafficking, the Polaris Project and many others have been creating training modules that help the viewers see this issue in a new light, these tools help you, the viewer, give a face to the victims of this crime.  This is not a victimless crime, the statistics are not just numbers, these stories are about real people impacted by this issue.  When we start to peel back the layers to this dilemma within our communities, we see the many ripples of impact that such crimes have on our society as a whole.

We hear the horror stories of the intersections to other issues such as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples crisis because of the risk factors associated within vulnerable populations that make them easy targets for traffickers.  Native Americans account for nearly 1 out of 4 trafficking victims. Efforts to create toolkits for training for these at-risk populations have been taken on by the Federal Transit Administration and several partner agencies.  Many grassroots efforts within Native communities are continuing hand in hand with these federal agencies to create a safety net for potential victims even in remote areas such as rural and tribal communities.

How do you join these efforts? By taking action within your agency.  By signing the pledge.  By educating your staff and by taking your newfound knowledge and sharing the information within your community.

Take Action

The US DOT’s Human Trafficking website includes information from Transportation Leaders Against Human Trafficking (TLAHT) lists the following actions you can take with corresponding templates, flyers, and training videos:

• Become a partner – take the pledge 
• Issue a Leaders Statement
• Train Your Employees – Combating Human Trafficking in the Transportation Sector Awareness Training
• Raise Awareness

You can promote the National Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888-373-7888) or by texting BEFREE as important resources to report a tip or ask for help.

This blog was written by guest blogger Amy Hill, Director, Muscogee Nation Transit Authority.