18 CALIFORNIA LODGING NEWS www.calodging.com STOPPING THE TRAFFIC IN HUMAN TRAFFICKING PREVENTION January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, a designation since 2010 to call attention to the global crime of human trafficking, which ranks among the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprises. The U.S. State Department estimates that there are more than 27.6 million people, both children and adults, who are victims of human trafficking around the world. It is estimated that traffickers generate $150 billion in global profits annually. The crime can take many forms, but federal law defines it as any form of labor or commercial sex that is induced by force, fraud, or coercion. It also covers using anyone under 18 to perform commercial sex acts, regardless of whether force, fraud, or coercion are involved. In California, state laws include similar definitions. While cases of human trafficking in California have declined somewhat in recent years, the stat remains one of the largest sites for human trafficking in the United States, according to the Attorney General’s office, with nearly 1,700 reported cases in 2018. The vast majority of those reports were related to sex trafficking, although a significant number of cases involved forced labor. With increased attention focused on the issue, local governments are also taking action: The City of Los Angeles’ Public Safety Committee in October passed a CHLA-supported motion to require the Chief of Police and Police Commission to report on existing resources and ways to augment those resources to help individuals that have been victims of human trafficking and reduce the occurrence of human trafficking throughout the city. The hotel industry can play a significant role in combating this form of exploitation, especially if the staff at a property are trained about how to spot potential human trafficking and what to do about it. And as a whole, the industry has responded strongly to the challenge. “The hotel industry has really led [the] private sector in addressing this issue,” said Kirsten Foot, CEO & Executive Director of BEST (Businesses Ending Slavery & Trafficking), an organization devoted to combating the practice. “The industry was the first to recognize its need for support against human trafficking and to arm employees with training and knowledge.” In fact, since the passage of a state law in 2018, every lodging establishment in California is required to provide a minimum of annual human trafficking training to its employees, one of the first states to have such a requirement. CHLA offers its members a training program developed by BEST that meets those state requirements. There are options for individual online employee trainings in both Spanish and English as well as online sessions for employers that include additional modules and resources for owners and managers. There also are group training options in both languages for in-person training sessions. The courses, along with supporting materials, are available to CHLA members at no cost; more information is available at https://www. calodging.com/resources/member-benefits/ human-trafficking-resources. BEST and others also offer more extensive trainings for properties where additional resources might be appropriate. Owners and managers can be challenged to keep abreast of the training requirement at the moment, Foot said, as they deal with staff shortages and turnover. California requires the training to be completed within six months of hire, which can put properties in the position of a constant schedule of training. For that reason, it can be helpful for managers to implement training that can be taken individually by each employee, rather than in group sessions. The training “is not about profiling people by demographics, but about behaviors, what kind of behaviors to look for,” Foot said. A room with many visitors coming and going, where those visitors appear uncomfortable being observed or won’t make eye contact are just some indications that something may be amiss. (See the accompanying chart for more details.) Foot cited the recent case of a “high-end” hotel in Seattle where a housekeeper observed suspicious behavior around a particular guest room involving an unusual number of male visitors. The housekeeper reported the situation to management, which believing there could be a minor involved, called law enforcement. That intervention discovered a minor female and led to the arrest of the individual responsible. What made that successful was not just training, but also good relationships between staff and management. “The housekeeping staff trusted management enough to go to them with these alarming indicators, and the manager responded quickly and effectively,” she said.
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