Meeting Professionals Against Human Trafficking

“If you see something

Say something

You could be wrong and that’s OK

Or you could be right and save a life”

MPAHT will ‘celebrate’ our 5^th anniversary on April 17^th 2022.  It isn’t a celebration; it’s a reference to the simple fact that we, as so many other organizations working in the area of human slavery, are still needed.

My goal when I started, quite frankly, was to ‘save the world from human slavery.’ Obviously that was not going to happen.  Here is what did happen: we did small actions that reverberated within our industry and beyond; and we created awareness and that created more actions and collaborations. It starts with small actions that ripple beyond our capacity and it has created, for MPAHT, alignments with larger similar groups worldwide.

This post will include:

• Some stats you probably already know
• Many links to further research to create your own awareness and lead you to action, within our industry and personally as well
• Actions, from the small personal to larger for your companies

Let’s start with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime definition of Human Trafficking

“Every person who recruits, transports, transfers, receives, holds, conceals, or harbours a person, or who exercises control or influence over the movements of a person, for the purpose of exploiting them or facilitating their exploitation.”

ACTION:  Take apart the meaning of the underlined words—truly understand what this means.  Discuss amongst your family, friends, colleagues

Here’s some worldwide stats- from the Global Slavery Index site;  they are pretty scary and only the tip of the proverbial iceberg:

• 40.3 million humans currently being trafficked(?) worldwide (2016)
• 24.9% through-forced labour
• 4.5 million through sex exploitation
• 71% female, 29% male
• USD $354 Billion business
• Reusable commodity

And now the many links to help you understand and take action:

The Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking

https://www.canadiancentretoendhumantrafficking.ca/ 

This is the Canadian 800 hotline and so much more. Become familiar with it, they have research, they can help you if you feel you ‘saw something’ and for those who are victims. This hotline is enormously needed-right across Canada and services victims of both sex trafficking and labour trafficking.

Here’s a map of Human Trafficking corridors in Canada from their research—so you see—it does happen across Canada.

ACTION:  Put the 800 number in your phone right now: 1-833-900-1010.

Travelling

• Find a similar 800 number anywhere in the worldwww.globalmodernslavery.org
• Explore www.ecpat.org And then delve into https://www.ecpatusa.org/unpackinghumantrafficking

And what about labour exploitation and supply chains?

https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2022/03/labour-exploitation-in-global-supply-chains-what-we-heard-report.html

A starting point in Canadian law.  There’s more.

ILAB Sweat & Toil App

Download the ILAB Sweat & Toil App to discover where there may be slave labour in supply chains. You will be surprised how many of the supply chains we are familiar with use slave labour.

https://www.dol.gov/general/apps/ilab  

This will give you a world view. 

ACTION:

Planners, include questions in your RFPs to venues, tech suppliers, etc. on what they are doing to help fight human trafficking, both sex & labour trafficking.

Suppliers, include what your company is doing to battle sex & labour trafficking in your marketing materials and your contracts.

All of us need to question why venues, airports, etc. don’t have signage and place the pressure on these locations to display them.

The Exchange Initiative

https://www.exchangeinitiative.com/

A worldwide initiative that helps maintain a database of hotel rooms that assists law enforcement to compare and discover locations of victims being sex trafficked through online ads and videos that are filmed in hotel rooms.

ACTION:  Download the app to your phone & take and upload photos in each hotel. Hotels:  Why not download each of your rooms to the app?

My hope is that these few suggestions will get you beyond thinking about “isn’t it horrible” to stepping up and acting. We are all in this together. Go down the google rabbit hole. There is so much more.

Questions, want to get involved?

Contact me at Sandy.biback@outlook.com

Mobile: 416-618-5411

Find MPAHT on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIN

About the Author:

Sandy Biback, CMP Emeritus, CMM
Founder Meeting Professionals Against Human Trafficking, with over 40 years as a conference planner, hospitality professor and industry volunteer