WASHINGTON—American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) Interim President and CEO Kevin Carey released the following statement regarding the introduction of the Human Trafficking Awareness Training Recognition Act, which requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish a certification program for businesses that train their employees to recognize and respond to suspected human trafficking.
“The Human Trafficking Awareness Training Recognition Act would complement our industry’s anti-trafficking efforts by providing important third-party validation for hotels’ training and prevention initiatives,” said Carey. “We are grateful to Reps. Valadao and Carter for introducing this important bill and look forward to helping them pass it into law.”
Background
The Human Trafficking Awareness Training Recognition Act was introduced this week by Reps. David Valadao, R-Calif., and Troy Carter, D-La.
The legislation lets DHS certify businesses that have trained their employees to fight human trafficking and allows those businesses to display these annual certifications to the public. These optional certifications would be issued by the Blue Campaign at the DHS Center for Countering Human Trafficking, which works to raise public awareness of human trafficking.
AHLA, its members, and the AHLA Foundation are committed to trafficking prevention, and hotels have been leaders in this area for many years.
- Since 2019, the No Room for Trafficking (NRFT) initiative has supported the distribution of free trafficking-prevention training for hotel employees through a partnership with PACT (formerly ECPAT-USA).
- These trainings help hotel staff understand what to look for and how to respond to signs of trafficking and are paired with AHLA Foundation resources that explain how to display human trafficking indicator signage in hotels, establish company-wide policies, coordinate with law enforcement, and share success stories and best practices.
- The three available training modules have been taken more than 1.6 million times to date, and thousands are trained every year. These numbers do not include additional anti-trafficking training efforts by AHLA members, which vary in length and frequency.
- The AHLA Foundation in 2022 announced expanded efforts to support trafficking survivors through the industry’s first-ever Survivor Fund, which has raised $3.7 million since its inception.
- As part of its continued commitment to combatting this issue, AHLA Foundation is matching NRFT Survivor Fund contributions up to $5 million dollars (with an overall goal of $10 million in total contributions).
“Through the AHLA Foundation’s No Room for Trafficking initiative, the hotel industry is united in the effort to prevent human trafficking and support survivors,” said AHLA Foundation President Anna Blue. “The collective impact of the industry can accelerate innovative human trafficking prevention efforts and upstream strategies to make a positive difference in the communities where we work and live.”
