| Five years ago, the all-female staff at US-based meetings management company Nix assumed human trafficking was something that happened in other countries. But when one client asked them to arrange a meeting in a hotel which took a stand against sex trafficking, they decided to look deeper into the issue. They were shocked to discover that hotels across the world, large and small, are often home to sex crimes.
At the same time, there was widespread reluctance to sign up to End Child Prostitution and Trafficking (EPCAT)’s Tourism Code, which supports organisations in their efforts to combat trafficking. Knowing they were perfectly placed to raise awareness, Nix took up the cause and began campaigning, educating hotels about the risks of being used as tools in the sex trafficking trade. These seven women scour the internet for photos of girls for sale and, using clues like wallpaper patterns, track down the hotels they were taken in to persuade them to sign up to the code. They also spread the word at the conferences they help to organise, and even help local police identify the hotels which are unwittingly homes to sex crimes. “We felt it was time to bring sex trafficking to the industry’s attention,” says Molly Hackett, Principle of Nix. “It’s wonderful – we’ve had a tremendous amount of feedback, including from girls who have been rescued thanking us for our work.” Cosmopolitan Magazine © October 2013 |
Source: TraffickCam Articles