Wednesday, June 15, 2011 :: Staff infoZine
By Michael Stainbrook - A woman boarded a plane with two children. When she reached her destination, she handed the children off to a man.
Similar incidents have taken place on flights from Ukraine to Chicago. Last week, flight attendants reported a potential human trafficking operation on a flight from Zurich to Chicago involving 30 young girls.
Such events are commonplace, said Nancy Rivard of Airline Ambassadors International, which works to prevent modern slavery transportation on commercial airlines. The group trains flight attendants and pilots about how to spot potential traffickers and how to respond.
She is not alone in this mission.
All Girls Allowed founder Chai Ling shows a book naming 2,175 Chinese children suspected as being trafficking victims as Deborah Cundy, left, and Nancy Rivard look on. The women testified before a House subcommittee Monday. SHFWire photo by Michael Stainbrook
“We know that organized crime, street gangs and pimps have expanded into sex trafficking at an alarming rate,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who introduced the current law and chairs the subcommittee. “It is an extremely lucrative undertaking.”
The latest version of the law first enacted in 2000 established the Trafficking in Persons Report, which ranks countries’ efforts to stop modern slavery.
Luis CdeBaca, ambassador-at-large and director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, testified that the TIP Report led many developing nations to put prevention, prosecution and victim protection measures in place.
“Leaders in Africa, Latin America and around the world credited the report as a motivating factor for their actions as governments,” he said. He encouraged government leaders to “get out on the road and see these people for yourselves.”
Six business representatives told of their efforts to enforce uniform best practices to intervene in situations in which human trafficking might take place.
Deborah Cundy, vice president of Carlson Companies, said the company was the first major hotel business to sign the code of conduct agreeing to train employees to identify and prevent child sexual exploitation. Hilton Hotels Corp. recently signed the agreement.
“In the travel industry, this abuse is sometimes played out in hotels and tourism sites around the world,” Cundy said. “There are hotels that are complicit in these activities, but often they are unknowing facilitators.”
Rivard said flight crews are trained to spot questionable travel arrangements, such as older men traveling with multiple young girls and not allowing them to use the bathroom.
Delta, U.S. Airways and Jet Blue have cooperated with Airline Ambassadors International, she said, including on a humanitarian trip to the Dominican Republic. On the return trip, crews from all three airlines spotted human trafficking taking place.
“The flight attendants on each airline didn’t know what to look for or how to respond but were anxious to help after we told them what they should do,” Rivard said. “We realized how vital a role airline personnel could play as frontline defense for international security.”
CdeBaca said one roadblock in reaching widespread agreements with hotels and airlines is a fear of associating their brands with illegal activity.
“The notion of having the term slavery associated with them was so nerve-wracking to many of these companies that when we would talk with them, they would say we would love to do something … but we don’t really want anybody to know what we’re doing,” CdeBaca said.
Chai Ling of All Girls Allowed testified about the harmful effects of China’s one-child policy. She said girls are aborted, killed at a young age or sold to allow the family to have a boy. Girls who survive are often sold into marriage to raise money for the child’s family and to appease men who might not otherwise find a wife. Ling said there are 37 million more men than women in China.
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