14 / 30
14
Oregon Trucking Associations, Inc.
Oregon Truck Dispatch
In the Fight Against Human
Trafficking, Why Truckers?
By Kylla Lanier, Deputy Director for Truckers Against Trafficking
FEATURE
O
ne of the first steps in fighting human
trafficking was to determine what groups
of people have the greatest opportunity to
spot human trafficking as it is happening. Front-
line people, such as medical personnel, service
personnel in local neighborhoods (such as postal
workers, and cable, electrical, and water providers),
restaurant and hotel personnel, and members of all
segments of the transportation industry can serve
as primary surveillance, because they see things
the general public might not see.
Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT) began as an
initiative of Chapter 61 Ministries in 2009 to work
with the trucking industry, because it’s 7-million
strong. Truckers are trained to be extremely
observant. The trucking industry is composed of
people already entrusted with caring for other
people’s goods, which speaks to the character of
the industry when it comes to caring for others.
Members of the trucking industry are everywhere.
Lastly, traffickers wanting to make fast money
often target truckers at truck stops and rest areas
to sell their victims. This is evidenced by the
number of victims rescued from truck stops by the
FBI. Truckers were a critical front-line group to
recruit to make a significant impact.
Using tools such as an informational website,
on-demand webinars, a trucking-industry-specific
training DVD, wallet cards with signs to look for
and questions to ask, and social media accounts
(Facebook and Twitter), TAT began making
contacts throughout the trucking industry to build
relationships and state the case for trucking
members to join the abolitionist movement. TAT
also began having a presence at major trucking
shows as well as providing free presentations. The
trucking industry began responding positively. By
2011, TAT had grown so much and was making
such an impact in the industry that it needed to
become an independent 501(c)3 non-profit
organization in order to sustain its efforts.
Members of the trucking industry, who had
witnessed the prostitution of women and minors at
various places for years but who had not known
what it was began calling the National Human
Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) to report
what they were seeing. Polaris Project, which runs
the hotline, reported that calls from truckers rose
substantially starting in 2009 when TAT began. As
of November 2016, truckers have made 1534 calls
with 471 likely cases of trafficking, involving 1033
victims, at least 285 of whom were minors.
Major travel plaza and truck stop organizations
have joined TAT by making a commitment to train
their employees with TAT materials and to make
those materials available for trucking customers
across the United States. Truck-driving schools,
national and state trucking organizations, trucking
companies, individual truckers, and trucking
media have also joined forces with TAT.
TAT works to create relationships between state and
federal law enforcement and members of the
trucking industry through half-day events called
coalition builds. These events provide a more
effective localized response to human trafficking by
gathering law enforcement agencies and local anti-
trafficking resources in the same room with key
industry stakeholders, including general managers
of truck stops and representatives of state trucking
associations and carriers. In 2014, TAT launched its
Freedom Drivers Project, a 48-foot mobile exhibit
that travels the United States, teaching people about
domestic sex trafficking and what the trucking
industry is doing to combat it.
Using TAT materials, the Motor Vehicle
Enforcement division of the Iowa Department of
Transportation has created a model for other states
to follow in working with the trucking industry.
They place TAT materials in their state scale sites,
state rest areas, and state truck stops. They are also
Watch the
complete Truckers
Against Trafficking
Training Video
at https://vimeo.
com/21392891.