A St. Louis meeting planner says it’s what needs to happen at every big convention or event across the country.

“When we bring a large event to a city this is a red light to a trafficker that there will be an influx of people coming to that area,” explains, Kimberly Ritter, Senior Meeting Planner for Nix Conference and Meeting Management. She’s also Director of Development for the Exchange Initiative – a coalition formed by Nix to fight the underground sex trade.

Ritter says in New Jersey, victim advocates are going where the traffickers sell their girls. “They are actually going to transportation companies, they’re going to hotels, they’re going to convention and visitors bureaus and they’re all working together to train the staff of these venues on the red flags of human trafficking, so that the hotels have their eyes out for girls and boys coming in and being sold for sex.”

(Last year, KMOX News took you inside the hidden underground sex trade in our series “Children for Sale”. Click here for a link to those reports.)

The Exchange Initiative will look at other ways to fight the problem when it holds it’s first conference in St. Louis in March.

CBS KMOX ©January 2014