The post No Vacancy: Closing the Door on Labor Trafficking in the Hospitality Industry first appeared on Polaris.

Enter Polaris’s corporate hospitality partners — and generous individuals from across the country. When local shelters aren’t an option, partnerships like these enable us to use donated hotel points to make reservations for victims and survivors, bridging the gap in available housing. Thus far in 2022, points donations have helped house 37 people and a service dog, giving them a safe space to take the next step on their journey toward healing and freedom.

The Current Shelter Crisis

Hotel points have been invaluable during the pandemic. For those in trafficking situations, COVID-19 made it even harder to leave, given early lockdowns and loss of shelters and safety net services. Among survivors who had already left situations of trafficking, many found themselves back in crisis, jeopardizing their hard-won emotional healing and economic growth.

Polaris quickly saw this reflected in Trafficking Hotline contacts. Early data analysis determined that crisis cases needing assistance within 24 hours surged more than 40%, and emergency shelter requests nearly doubled, mirroring what service providers across the country were seeing in their communities. Meanwhile, already-limited shelter space was stretched even thinner with COVID restrictions, with some sites closing down altogether.

Today, we may be emerging from the acute phase of the pandemic, but the safety net has not recovered. Service providers are calling Polaris directly for their clients, and the Trafficking Hotline continues to receive more calls requesting hotel stays. And the stays are growing longer: Before the pandemic, victims and survivors generally spent about two to three days in hotels before moving into longer-term programs — they are now waiting about five to seven and as many as ten days for something to open up. And even then, they may have to stay in general shelters, which are not always the most supportive for their situations.

How You Can Help

With victims and survivors needing safe shelter options more than ever before, Polaris is redoubling our efforts to find them resources — and you can help us meet their needs.

If you’re a member of Choice Privileges, IHG One Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, or Wyndham Rewards, click here to learn how you can donate your points to support victims and survivors in need of emergency shelter. Polaris can use points from these loyalty programs to book stays, and some even allow the conversion of points into monetary donations for Polaris’s work.

If you’re an employee at a hospitality company and are interested in working with Polaris, please contact corporateengagement@polarisproject.org to explore partnership opportunities.

Through your generosity, Polaris can continue to bridge gaps in safe shelter for victims and survivors through the Trafficking Hotline, as we also work to strengthen safety nets and prevent trafficking from happening in the first place.

Thank You to All Our Corporate Hospitality Partners

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The post Systemic Change Matrix: Disrupting and Preventing Human Trafficking first appeared on Polaris.

And some companies aren’t stopping there, a couple of hotel companies are taking their efforts to the next level and leveraging their services to assist survivors after they have left their trafficking situation. It is absolutely critical to give survivors access to the support and services they need, no matter where they are on their journey to recovery and rebuilding their freedom.

Our partners at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts have created a program where customers can donate unused Wyndham Rewards Points to Polaris so we can use them on the National Human Trafficking Hotline for victims and survivors in need of emergency shelter.

After rolling out required human trafficking awareness training globally for all 700,000+ on-property employees in early 2017, Marriott International is now creating a program with the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery that aims to prepare trafficking survivors for careers in the hospitality industry. Job readiness efforts like these are vital because a lack of support and opportunity for self-sufficiency could result in survivors ending up back in situations of exploitation.

More progress

What’s more, our partners at Marriott have decided to go even further to combat this crime. In an unprecedented move, Marriott teamed up with Polaris to create trafficking awareness posters and signs for public-facing areas. This is the first time a major hotel company has embarked on a collaboration focused on building public awareness through trafficking signage and posters.

Together, we are working to create signs that will list potential red flags that could indicate a human trafficking situation may be occurring and how to contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline if someone should recognize those signs.

Why is this so important?

Information is power. Educating hotel staff is an important step, but what about the guests? Hotel guests are also in a position to recognize and report potential trafficking situations, or guests may be trafficking victims and survivors themselves. One of the key recommendations from Polaris’s recent report is for hotels and motels to publicly post the National Human Trafficking Hotline number on hotel properties. 

Marriott’s posters will also list red flags of potential human trafficking situations. Not only will this help educate guests, but these indicators may also help victims and survivors come closer to realizing they are experiencing exploitation. Often, the control tactics employed by traffickers are so coercive that trafficking victims may feel like it’s impossible to leave their situation, or may not even realize that they are being victimized in the first place. Posting these signs and including these indicators may be a way for a potential victim to realize that someone may be taking advantage of them, and that there is a resource out there for them to help when they are ready to leave.

January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and this year we’d like to encourage more hotel companies to take initiative and spread awareness about trafficking, the National Human Trafficking Hotline, and that there is help available for victims and survivors who want it. 

Stay informed! If you’d like to help make an impact on the lives of human trafficking victims and survivors join our Grassroots Network.

The post Hotel Companies Step Up to Fight Human Trafficking first appeared on Polaris.

As with any enterprise, human trafficking ventures are not built in a vacuum but rather depend on and intersect with legitimate industries and systems. Examples are abundant. Traffickers use banks for their earnings and buses to move their victims around; hotel rooms are integral to some sex traffickers, while social media is a recruitment trawling ground for others. The details matter. The more we know about the business plans of human trafficking, the better we can prevent and disrupt the crime and help survivors find freedom. To learn more, Polaris surveyed and interviewed the real experts on human trafficking – the survivors who lived through it. This report compiles what we learned, and how those insights can be used by businesses committed to change.

You can also view industry specific segments of the report:

• Financial Industry
• Health Care
• Social Media
• Hotels & Motels
• Housing & Homelessness Systems
• Transportation Industry

The post On-Ramps, Intersections, and Exit Routes: A Roadmap for Systems and Industries to Prevent and Disrupt Human Trafficking first appeared on Polaris.

The ‘Intersections’ report is the follow-up to The Typology of Modern Slavery, which, for the first time, catalogued the 25 primary types of human trafficking business models in the United States by analyzing over 32,000 potential cases from the National Human Trafficking Hotline. If the ‘Typology‘ report examined what human trafficking looked like in the U.S., the Intersections report takes on how to stop it.

In fact, the answer lies with people you wouldn’t immediately expect. An anti-money laundering professional. A local hotel concierge. Your next Uber driver. Facebook. Indeed, this report broadens the circle of who is considered an influential actor in the anti-trafficking field. It’s no longer just anti-trafficking NGOs or law enforcement. Private and public-private businesses have an incredibly unique and powerful role to play. This report focuses on the private and public-private sector because fighting human trafficking will require participation by business and industry partners with resources at a comparable scale to the size of the problem. The fight against human trafficking requires active commitment and effort on the part of these businesses that unwittingly, but regularly intersect with traffickers, victims, and survivors.

The Intersections report uses this matrix to visualize these intersections.

The Intersections report is a collection of the ideas and personal narratives shared with us by survivors of trafficking. The inclusion of diverse survivor voices was a central part of our approach to this report. Through a nationally distributed online survey and focus groups throughout the country, supplemented by data from the National Hotline, we learned from survivors about how their traffickers leveraged legitimate businesses and what recommendations they had for what could be done to make things better.  Insights from approximately 130 different survivors have contributed to the report!

Social Media

“Technology is being used [to hurt us]. Why can’t we use technology as a way to get resources to survivors?”

Most people think only sex trafficking have recruitment origins online. In fact, supervisors in traveling sales crews (a common labor trafficking type) may post flashy pictures on social media depicting stacks of cash and a party lifestyle to try to entice new victims to join their crews. Survivors are incredibly saavy and may use social media to coordinate their own escape by communicating through private messages with friends, family, and service providers. Once out of their situations, survivors rely on social media spaces for their continued safety, to rebuild their social relationships, and to connect, and share solidarity with other survivor leaders.

How can social media platforms help?

• Implement innovative safety features the could help survivors stay safe, such as disappearing messages and passcode protected folders or photo albums, as well as defaulting to “opt-in” options instead of requiring users to “opt out” when rolling out new features.

• Enable targeted ads for anti-trafficking organizations to intelligently offer sponsored posts connecting potential victims to resources and help.

• Learn more about social media’s intersections here.

Financial Services Industry

“Everything was put in my name with [my trafficker] as a co-signer, since [my trafficker] used a fake name, when I escaped, everything faulted back on me.”

Almost all survivors in Polaris focus groups reported that their trafficker(s) would use a victim’s name on a bank account or credit card to avoid putting their own name on paper. This tactic not only hides the potential financial crimes committed by the trafficker, it has lasting and devastating effects on survivors who have their credit and banking histories ruined. Traffickers can hide their criminal profits through a registered business because of a loophole in the U.S. that doesn’t require business owners to disclose the people who actually make money from the business.

How can the financial services industry help?

• Assist survivors in rebuilding their economic portfolio by providing access to financial services, such as simple bank accounts, reasonable credit cards, or microloans to help build credit.

• The federal government should enact legislation requiring every registered business to disclose their beneficial owner, and that, at the very least, that information should be available to law enforcement.

• Learn more about the financial services industry’s intersections here.

Hotels & Motels

“If I would have seen [the Hotline number] all the times that I just got beat up… I mean, I’ve had some really bad experiences in hotel rooms, and if I had seen something like that I would have called it.”

The National Human Trafficking Hotline has received 3,596 cases of human trafficking which have a connection with a hotel or motel business. Beyond sex trafficking in escort services, sales crews can utilize hotels to house victims during travel, and housekeepers working for a hotel subcontractor can also be victims of labor trafficking.

How can hotels and motels help?

• Ensure the National Human Trafficking Hotline is posted or available on-site (including within hotel rooms) to alert victims that help is available.

• Adopt policies to directly hire employees whenever possible. The more removed or tenuous an employment relationship is, the more vulnerable workers are to abuse. If it is not possible for a business to directly hire all personnel, Polaris strongly recommends hotel management thoroughly research subcontractors’ recruitment and business practices and create enforceable oversight systems.

• Learn more about hotels’ and motels’ intersections here.

Transportation

I don’t drive so I relied on public transportation when I left my trafficker and having access to it where I lived helped economically with me leaving the situation.

Traffickers in sex and labor trafficking use long-distance buses like Greyhound, trains, rideshare apps, and airlines to initially transport victims into their trafficking situations, as well as move them throughout the country during their exploitation. In Polaris’s survivor survey, 54 percent of survivors noted that access to transportation was a barrier to their leaving their situation.

How can the transportation industry help?

• Provide travel vouchers or points donations to anti-trafficking organizations to help survivors actually get free from their trafficking situations and to critical resources they need to rebuild their lives.

• Learn more about transportation intersections here.

Health Care

“Since I was often taken to different doctors and to the ER to treat trafficking related injuries, I wish that someone would have taken me aside and asked those [screening questions] or even asked me if I was okay…”

Sixty-nine percent of survivors in Polaris’s survey stated they had access to health services at some time during their exploitation. Survivors in Polaris focus groups described feeling discriminated against or judged by health care professionals during their trafficking. While greater empathy and awareness is improving in this field, this poor treatment has had lasting effects on some survivors’ trust with their health care provider.

How can the healthcare industry help?

• Create and implement a trauma-informed care and training protocol for all health facility staff, bolstered by posting the National Hotline number where it can be discreetly accessed by at-risk patients.

• Urge Congress to pass the Stop, Observe, Ask, and Respond (S.O.A.R.) to Health and Wellness Act to reauthorize and expand funding to ensure that health care and related professionals have access to comprehensive training and technical assistance to help trafficking victims.

• Learn more about the healthcare industry’s intersections here.

Housing & Homelessness Systems

“When I got out of the trafficking I was put immediately by state patrol into a domestic violence shelter. It was the only shelter where I was from. I was their very first trafficking victim.”

Emergency shelter makes up 47% of all crisis requests to the National Hotline but is sometimes the most difficult service to secure – especially for survivors of labor trafficking, male victims, and victims who identify as LGBTQ+. Some trafficking business models such as residential brothels, and even labor trafficking types which rely on migrant workers, rent private homes to house victims and facilitate their exploitative businesses.

What can housing and/or homelessness systems do to help?

• Include victims of human trafficking as a target population for domestic violence shelters. When a trafficking-specific shelter is not available, domestic violence shelters are the best suited out of any other institution to fill the gaps. Domestic violence shelters will need additional resources to do so, and some will need to revamp certain policies to meet the needs of both populations.

• Include basic rights and protections into standard lease agreements explicitly protecting survivors of human trafficking from housing discrimination, eviction, or other punishment based on their status or history as a victim of crime.

• Learn more about housing and homelessness systems’ intersections here.

We were so proud to unveil this research to the world through a panel event on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC last week and streamed the event on Facebook Live, too!  Nationally renowned experts in some of the above industries joined us to discuss how their industries are advancing anti-trafficking goals, supporting survivors, and most importantly, the opportunities for further improvement.

Traffickers are depending on the inaction from businesses to continue using them with impunity. Survivors are depending on those same systems to recognize them and offer a pathway to recovery. When we released the Typology, we said it would offer a roadmap for taking the next steps in creating a world without slavery. The new Intersections report outlines those next steps. But we need to take them together.

If you’re a professional in any one of these industries and want to learn more about working with Polaris, please contact corporateengagement@polarisproject.org. 

The post New Report Provides Roadmap for Industries to Join the Fight Against Human Trafficking first appeared on Polaris.

“We couldn’t be more thankful to Marriott International for making this commitment to the fight against modern slavery,” said Bradley Myles, CEO of Polaris. “Through their donations, Marriott’s customers will support our work to disrupt trafficking networks and connect survivors to the help they need. We are grateful for Marriott’s leadership in the hospitality industry on this issue.”

To donate points, customers can visit Marriott’s featured nonprofits webpage at giving.marriottrewards.com. With more than 6,400 properties in over 126 countries and territories, Marriott recognizes and embraces its global responsibility and unique opportunity to be a force for good.

Polaris develops sustainable, service-oriented, and survivor-centric corporate partnerships to disrupt human trafficking at the root and establish trafficking-proof environments. By working with companies to identify and respond to human trafficking within their industries, Polaris and its partners seek to flip the modern slavery economy so it is no longer a high profit, low risk endeavor

People can receive help or report a tip of suspected human trafficking in the United States by calling the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or by sending a text to Polaris at “BeFree” (233733).

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About Polaris
Polaris is a leader in the global fight to eradicate modern slavery. Named after the North Star that guided slaves to freedom in the U.S., Polaris acts as a catalyst to systemically disrupt the human trafficking networks that rob human beings of their lives and their freedom. By working with government leaders, the world’s leading technology corporations, and local partners, Polaris equips communities to identify, report, and prevent human trafficking. Our comprehensive model puts victims at the center of what we do – helping survivors restore their freedom, preventing more victims, and leveraging data and technology to pursue traffickers wherever they operate. Learn more at www.polarisproject.org.

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For years, we have been staring at an incomplete chess game, moving pieces without seeing hidden squares or fully understanding the power relationships between players. The Typology of Modern Slavery, our blurry understanding of the scope of the crime is now coming into sharper focus.

Polaris analyzed more than 32,000 cases of human trafficking documented between December 2007 and December 2016 through its operation of the National Human Trafficking Hotline and BeFree Textline—the largest data set on human trafficking in the United States ever compiled and publicly analyzed. Polaris’s research team analyzed the data and developed a classification system that identifies 25 types of human trafficking in the United States. Each has its own business model, trafficker profiles, recruitment strategies, victim profiles, and methods of control that facilitate human trafficking.

The post The Typology of Modern Slavery: Defining Sex and Labor Trafficking in the United States first appeared on Polaris.

The creation and passage of this law resulted from a collaborative process with input from a variety of stakeholders throughout Connecticut. At the center of it all was Connecticut’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Council, a diverse group whose members come from State agencies and the public sector. TIP is committed to preventing and addressing human trafficking. Driving this process was the council’s desire to create a law that would lessen the prevalence of sex and labor trafficking in hotels and motels. Council members knew that, if they wanted to be successful, they would have to acknowledge that when it comes to preventing trafficking in hotels and motels there are two sides to the same coin — establishments that don’t realize what human trafficking is or that it takes place on their property, and those who most certainly know about human trafficking and reap a financial benefit from allowing it to take place.

Before the passage of the new law, Connecticut police and prosecutors only had one tool at their disposal, a criminal charge of “permitting prostitution.” Unfortunately, based on the frequency with which we know human trafficking takes place, this charge was being under-utilized.

The New Law Brings Necessary Changes

As of October 2016, all hotel and motel staff in Connecticut will receive mandatory training on how to recognize victims and activities commonly associated with human trafficking. This will make it harder for an owner of a hotel where prostitution and human trafficking are known to take place to feign ignorance when confronted by the police. It also gives those owners and staff who don’t know about human trafficking concrete action steps they can take to deter traffickers and connect victims to services. The new law also requires hotels and motels to keep track of all guest transactions and receipts, severely impeding the practice of hourly room rentals to no-name “johns.” Connecticut is trying to send a strong message that the selling of children and adults for sex or cheap labor will not be tolerated.

Krishna Patel, the General Counsel & Justice Initiative Director at Grace Farms Foundation in Connecticut who helped draft amendments to the law, explained how significant this really is to the fight against human trafficking in her state:

“With the passage of Public Act No. 16-71, we have a measure that puts teeth into existing laws and supports the enforcement and prosecution of those who deal in human trafficking. The act also makes Connecticut the first state to require hotels and motels to keep guest records, and to train staff on how to identify signs of human trafficking and report suspected crimes, creating a foundation for how to model collaborative, community-based efforts to end human slavery.”

The law goes one step further in an attempt to bring awareness to the public and possible victims of human trafficking by requiring all hotels and motels to post a notice about what human trafficking is and how to obtain help by contacting the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC)* hotline. The notice must be posted in plain view where sales are carried out. Often, victims of human trafficking are kept isolated, so having the national human trafficking hotline number visible in a hotel or motel lobby might be a victim’s only lifeline to safety.

This strong new law can serve as a model for the rest of the nation. By raising awareness about trafficking and disrupting the conditions that allow it to occur in hotels and motels, Connecticut is making it harder for traffickers to operate and helping victims obtain the services they need.

*The NHTRC is now the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline.

Jillian Gilchrest is the Chair of the TIP Council, as designee of the Commission on Women, Children, and Seniors and Director of Health Professional Outreach at the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

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