115th CONGRESS Printed for the use of the 

2nd Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Fighting Human Trafficking in

Travel and Tourism: New

Challenges and Solutions

MAY 7, 2018

Joint Briefing of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

and the Congressional Trafficking Caucus

Washington: 2018


CSCESeal.EPS
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Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

234 Ford House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515

202–225–1901

csce@mail.house.gov 

http://www.csce.gov 

@HelsinkiComm

Legislative Branch Commissioners

HOUSE 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, NEW JERSEY

Co-Chairman 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, FLORIDA

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, ALABAMA

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, TEXAS

STEVE COHEN, TENNESSEE

RICHARD HUDSON, NORTH CAROLINA

RANDY HULTGREN, ILLINOIS

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, TEXAS

GWEN MOORE, WISCONSIN

SENATE 

ROGER WICKER, MISSISSIPPI, 

Chairman 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. MARYLAND

JOHN BOOZMAN, ARKANSAS

CORY GARDNER, COLORADO

MARCO RUBIO, FLORIDA

JEANNE SHAHEEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE

THOM TILLIS, NORTH CAROLINA

TOM UDALL, NEW MEXICO

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND

Executive Branch Commissioners

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 

1, 1975, by the leaders of 33 European countries, the United States and Canada. As of 

January 1, 1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe [OSCE]. The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 56 participating States, reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. 

The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings of the participating States’ permanent representatives are held. In addition, specialized seminars and 

meetings are convened in various locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior 

Officials, Ministers and Heads of State or Government. 

Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the fields of military 

security, economic and environmental cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian 

concerns, the Organization is primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage 

and resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The Organization deploys 

numerous missions and field activities located in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the 

Caucasus, and Central Asia. The website of the OSCE is: <www.osce.org>. 

ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki 

Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage 

compliance by the participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular 

emphasis on human rights. 

The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine members from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of 

State, Defense and Commerce. The positions of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the 

Senate and House every two years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff 

assists the Commissioners in their work. 

In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates relevant information to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening hearings, issuing reports that 

reflect the views of Members of the Commission and/or its staff, and providing details 

about the activities of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating 

States. 

The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of U.S. policy 

regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff participation on U.S. Delegations to OSCE meetings. Members of the Commission have regular contact with 

parliamentarians, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and private individuals from participating States. The website of the Commission 

is: <www.csce.gov>. 

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Fighting Human Trafficking in Travel and Tourism:

New Challenges and Solutions

MAY 7, 2018

Page 

PARTICIPANTS

Allison Hollabaugh Parker, General Counsel, Commission for Security and Cooperation in 

Europe .......................................................................................................................................... 1

Hon. Christopher Smith, Co-Chairman, Commission for Security and Cooperation in

Europe .......................................................................................................................................... 2

Michael ‘‘Mick’’ McKeown, Blue Campaign Executive Director, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ................................................................................................................................ 3

Tracey Breeden, Director of Safety Communications, Uber ........................................................ 4

Nancy Rivard, Founder and President of Airline Ambassadors ................................................. 6

Carol Smolenski, Executive Director, End Child Prostitution and Trafficking-USA [ECPATUSA] ............................................................................................................................................. 8

Craig Kalkut, Vice President of Government Affairs, American Hotel & Lodging

Association ................................................................................................................................... 11

Nick Shapiro, Global Head of Trust & Risk Management, Airbnb ............................................ 13

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Fighting Human Trafficking in Travel and Tourism:

New Challenges and Solutions 

May 7, 2018

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

and the Congressional Trafficking Caucus

Washington, DC

The briefing was held at 3:02 p.m. in Room 485, Russell Senate Office Building, 

Washington, DC, Allison Hollabaugh Parker, General Counsel, Commission for Security 

and Cooperation in Europe, moderating. 

Panelists present: Allison Hollabaugh Parker, General Counsel, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Christopher Smith, Co-Chairman, Commission for 

Security and Cooperation in Europe; Michael ‘‘Mick’’ McKeown, Blue Campaign Executive 

Director, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Tracey Breeden, Director of Safety 

Communications, Uber; Nancy Rivard, Founder and President of Airline Ambassadors; 

Carol Smolenski, Executive Director, End Child Prostitution and Trafficking-USA 

[ECPAT-USA]; Craig Kalkut, Vice President of Government Affairs, American Hotel & 

Lodging Association; and Nick Shapiro, Global Head of Trust & Risk Management, 

Airbnb.

Ms. PARKER. Good afternoon. Thank you all for joining us this afternoon for this 

briefing hosted by the Helsinki Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe and 

by the Congressional Human Trafficking Caucus. 

My name is Allison Hollabaugh Parker. I’m general counsel for the Helsinki Commission as well as one of the coordinators for the Congressional Human Trafficking Caucus, 

both of which are co-chaired by Congressman Christopher Smith, who is with us today 

to open our briefing. 

Congressman Smith needs little introduction within trafficking circles. He has been 

fighting human trafficking for over two decades. He’s the author of the Trafficking Victims 

Protection Act of 2000, as well as its 2003 and 2005 reauthorizations, as well as the most 

recent reauthorization that passed the House of Representatives just last year in July 

called the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Act. It’s H.R. 

2200. To tell you more about that, here’s Representative Smith. [Applause.] 

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Allison. And it is a privilege to be here, and I 

thank you for your leadership on human trafficking. It’s been extraordinary for so many 

years, so I want to thank you for that, Allison. 

And I want to especially thank our distinguished panel, and the insights that we will 

glean from what they have to tell us this afternoon. 

I want to thank all of you for joining us today for this joint briefing. You know, 

according to the ILO—the International Labour Organization—human trafficking in the 

private economy generates about $150 billion in illegal profits per year. Sixteen million 

people are exploited in labor trafficking, according to the ILO; 4.8 million are exploited 

in sex trafficking; and approximately 4 million others are exploited in state-imposed trafficking. Women and girls—as we know so painfully well—women and girls account for 99 

percent of sex trafficking and about 58 percent are victims of labor trafficking. 

The stories you will hear today show that it has been happening right under our 

noses. It’s not just over there. It’s in the United States. It’s in every one of our congressional districts. And, of course, it is in other countries as well. And you will hear from 

people—these panelists—who are really on the front line in trying to mitigate and end 

this horrific cruelty. 

As Allison pointed out, in 1998 I introduced the comprehensive legislation that was 

signed into law in the year 2000 called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. It was a 

very hard sell. There were a lot of people who thought it was a solution in search of a 

problem. When you talked trafficking to U.S. attorneys, they would say, oh, you mean 

drugs, right? And we’d say, no, we’re talking about human beings, especially women, who 

are reduced to commodities for sale and for resale and exploitation over and over again. 

The legislation provided sheltering, political asylum, other protections for the victims, long 

jail sentences and asset confiscation for the traffickers, and tough sanctions for governments that failed to meet what we called minimum standards prescribed in the legislation. 

What is often forgotten is that it applies equally domestically. The legislation codified 

very strong jail sentences and asset confiscation for traffickers here in the United States. 

For example, on April 19th, the indictment of Allison Mack of the TV series ‘‘Smallville’’ 

and others in a notorious sex-trafficking case—what they’re being charged under is the 

TPVA, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and its many related provisions. 

Every 3 to 5 years we build on the original TPVA of 2000, and 2018 is just another 

year where we’re trying to update and strengthen our comprehensive legislation. As 

Allison pointed out, we’ve introduced the Frederick Douglass bill. It passed the House 

almost a year ago. Hopefully the Senate will take it up soon and get it down to the president for his signature. 

Inspired by Nancy Rivard’s work with the airline industry, which she first brought 

to my attention in 2009, one section of the bill will tie eligibility for airline contracts to 

fly U.S. Government employees with whether or not they have a system in place, a protocol. It’s not absolute, but it will give preference, like we have with Delta and some of 

the other airlines—a very strong, robust effort of situational awareness. Well, if you have 

that in place, you’re more apt to get a U.S. Government contract. 

Inspired by Carol Smolenski’s ECPAT’s briefing on the Hill some 2 years ago, we will 

also tie it to what’s happening in the hotel industry, because we do know that U.S. 

Government employees all over the country are staying in hotels. We want to make sure 

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that there’s a protocol in place there as well, a situational awareness training so that, 

again, if you see something that looks wrong, is not right, you will report upon it. 

I would just point out, finally, that just this year sweeping legislation was passed—

it’s Ann Wagner’s bill—the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act. 

That became law and almost immediately some of the worst online slave markets went 

dark, and the CFO of Backpage.com plead guilty to child sex trafficking. 

A coupe of years ago we passed the International Megan’s Law. Megan Kanka was 

from my hometown of Hamilton. She was brutally murdered and raped by a convicted 

pedophile who lived across the street. It took eight long years, but we got the International Megan’s Law passed. And now we notice countries—when a convicted pedophile 

plans to travel, that person is noticed to that country and the country can take appropriate steps, which usually means they’re not allowed into that country. And so far—it’s 

about a year now—there’s been an effect: 3,600 sex offenders with sex offenses against 

children have been noticed to these countries. And many, the overwhelming majority of 

those, have been turned back and said you will not come to our country and abuse our 

children in secrecy. 

I want to again thank this very distinguished panel, and Allison’s going to do the 

introductions for each and every one of them. This is a good learning moment, and these 

are the experts who have made all the difference in the world. 

And I thank you. [Applause.] 

Ms. PARKER. Thank you, Congressman Smith. 

First up, we have Michael ‘‘Mick’’ McKeown. He is the executive director of the 

Department of Homeland Security Homeland Security Advisory Council and Blue Campaign. If you ‘‘see something, say something.’’ He oversees the 40 council members as well 

as the ongoing policy work of the subcommittees. He also heightens the public’s familiarity with human trafficking and its identifiers. Under the ‘‘If You See Something, Say 

Something’’ campaign, he raises public awareness on indicators of terrorism and terrorrelated crimes and how to recognize them. 

Mr. MCKEOWN. Thank you very much. 

So, first, Representative, I want to also thank you for the Blue Campaign Authorization Act that was passed unanimously through the House and the Senate. Greatly appreciate your support on that. That is a big first step for us at the Department of Homeland 

Security, to be able to codify that type of office so that we will be there in perpetuity—

however you say that word—and be able to work together to help eradicate this crime. 

Because that’s what the whole point of this table and all of the work we’re doing is. We’re 

not trying to fight it; we’re trying to eradicate human trafficking. 

And one of the things that is so fulfilling to be able to be here today is to know that 

when we work in the spaces that we do, the type of responses that I get from the private 

sector. Predominantly when I do my work I work with the hospitality industry, and we’ve 

been able to introduce a Hospitality Toolkit. And this toolkit is giving us a great conversation piece to bring to the private sector. Also, it’s a two-way communication. It’s a way 

for us to get an understanding of what it is that they’re dealing with and how we in the 

Federal Government can help them combat this crime. 

That being said, when we work in these spaces, one of the things that we’re really 

trying to do here at the Blue Campaign is to make sure that people kind of take a moment 

and look at things in a way that they might not have looked at it before. One of the things 

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that we have to deal with is, you know, the ‘‘why,’’ right? Because ‘‘why’’ is a funny little 

word. It can either paralyze us or empower us. And one of the things that we try to do 

in the Blue Campaign is empower people to be able to take that action that they so desperately need because of those moments that give us pause, there’s a reason why they 

give us pause. And we have to kind of explore that. What here doesn’t feel right? What 

is that gut-check type of moment here that doesn’t seem right? What am I seeing? 

And that’s where the Blue Campaign is able to come in and help, introduce the hospitality industry to the Homeland Security Investigations department and giving them that 

thing to do, because it might not necessarily be a 9–1–1 call, but they know that something’s going on that’s not necessarily right. And so that’s one of the things that in our 

partnerships we’re trying to really build on and to help create. 

There’s other aspects of the Blue Campaign that we work on as well, not only with 

our transportation industry. We have a component that’s called the Blue Lightning Initiative that works with doing training. We also help with being the unified voice for the 

Department of Homeland Security [DHS]. We go across not only the 22 components that 

are composed of DHS, but also all the interagency work that goes along with it so that 

we are able to make sure that we have a unified front when dealing with this. 

I have to say, though, the greatest honor of being at the Blue Campaign and doing 

this is the victim-centered approach that we take to how we handle this horrific crime. 

And every piece of product that we send out, whether it’s the Hospitality Toolkit or our 

new public service announcement called ‘‘Neighborhood Watch,’’ has survivor input. And 

I think that really makes it an important aspect of the work that we do, because if you’re 

going to have an authentic voice and be in a noisy world like this is, you have to have 

a strong personal narrative. And I think that we’re able, by getting this type of victimcentered approach, to get that survivor input. They might be victims at one point, but 

when they work with us at the Blue Campaign they’re survivors. And to able to work with 

them and to be able to hear their story and give a voice to those who have been voiceless 

for so long has been one of the most rewarding works of public service. 

So, that’s it for my intro. Thank you very much. [Applause.] 

Ms. PARKER. Thank you, Mick. 

Next up we have Tracey Breeden. Tracey’s the director of safety communications at 

Uber. In this role she leads global sex assault, human trafficking, and women’s safety 

campaigns. She has worked with Cindy McCain to create trafficking education for drivers. 

She also authored Uber’s first safety tips for riders. She’s the vice president for the nonprofit Kick at Darkness, which was founded by a survivor of child sex trafficking and 

helps fund healing services for survivors of human trafficking, sexual assault, domestic 

violence, child abuse, and hate crimes. Tracey is a subject-matter expert in sex crimes and 

domestic violence, drawing from nearly 15 years of experience in law enforcement as a 

former police officer and detective. We’re so grateful to have Tracey with us today. 

Ms. BREEDEN. Thank you. Thank you for having Uber here today to speak about this 

very important issue that affects all of our communities across the globe. 

Uber connects millions of people across the globe every single day. Every single day 

across the globe we’re doing 15 million trips. Think about how many people that is, 

coming into contact with one another. And we know that our drivers are uniquely positioned to really be able to identify not only victims of human trafficking, but to be able 

to prevent this. And we know that we play a significant role, and we want to play that 

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significant role in helping prevent this in our communities and finding ways that we can 

work with our national partners to make a difference in this space. 

In 2015, Uber partnered with ECPAT-USA to be the first company in the on-demand 

space to sign The Code. With that, we started to change our policies. Our community 

guideline is to have zero tolerance for human trafficking on our platform. And then we 

tried to find out how can we use our innovation and our technology to help raise awareness, to help educate in this space, to also help prevent this in our communities that we 

serve. 

We worked with organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited 

Children [NCMEC], ECPAT. Our other partners are the McCain Institute as well as 

Thorn and Polaris. Most recently we just partnered with Polaris at the first of the year 

to raise awareness around the national hotline that’s out there. 

We worked with Cindy McCain and the McCain Institute to develop tips specific to 

the rideshare platform. We wanted our drivers to know if something’s happening in their 

vehicle, what would it look like? What would human trafficking look like? We started first 

by educating and helping raise awareness with our drivers about what it is, because I 

can tell you as a former police officer most people in our communities don’t even know 

this is happening. They don’t know what it is. They don’t know what it looks like. So the 

first thing we have to do is help them understand what it is and help them realize that 

this happens in our communities each and every day, and no community is immune from 

it. She helped us develop those tips specifically to that platform. What should drivers look 

for when there’s somebody in their car? 

And how can they take action? That’s the third step. And by taking action, we educated our drivers on calling 9–1–1 first and foremost when you’re in a safe position. But 

you know, just like Mike talked about that gut check, sometimes you’re just not going to 

know if it raises to the level of 9–1–1. And you might have this feeling or this suspicion 

that you’re seeing something. So that’s where the national hotline comes in with Polaris, 

a way to call, to provide those tips to the national hotline, to get more information. And 

Polaris can partner with us to get that information to police. 

We also rolled out driver events across the nation to educate our drivers, to pull in 

local organizations as well as law enforcement and our national partners to talk about 

what—not only that this is a national issue and what it looks like on a national level, 

but what does it look like in that specific community, and working with those partners 

to help educate and raise awareness with those events. 

We also did things around the Super Bowl, putting information out around the big 

events. But we were also very careful that people understand that this is not something 

that is just attached to big events. This is something that’s attached to every day in 

America, and across the globe. 

So those are some of the things that we’ve been working on. We partner with Thorn. 

We provide our engineers to be able to help Thorn develop technology to be able to catch 

traffickers online. We’re always thinking about how can we utilize the people in our 

organization that have a skill set that could be helpful to these organizations; but also 

how can we, working with our national partners and working with other folks in this 

space, come up with solutions, ideas, and innovative ways to help combat this on a global 

level. 

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We’re also rolling this outside the United States. So for the first in time, in January 

we sent our messaging and our tips out to nearly a million drivers in the United States—

that’s every single driver in the United States—as well as 10 million riders. We’re now 

rolling that out internationally and working in Canada and Mexico. Canada doesn’t have 

a national hotline, but is working on getting a hotline this year around October or 

November. And we’re working with Polaris to be a part of that, as well as the same thing 

in Mexico and finding ways that we can do things internationally. 

I was just talking to Nancy, who’s doing training—and I’m sure she’ll talk about 

that—in Guatemala. That’s exciting to hear, of all these countries that we’re helping raise 

awareness with the millions of people who not only drive on our app but ride on our app. 

And we realize that we all have a role to play. We all have a role to play in the safety 

of our communities, and we take that role seriously. And we’re committed to finding solutions and doing more in this space. 

So thank you for having Uber here. 

Ms. PARKER. Thank you, Tracey. 

We next welcome Nancy Rivard. She’s the president and founder of Airline Ambassadors International, which has hand-delivered $60 million worth of aid to children in 54 

countries in orphanages, clinics, and remote communities, impacting over 500,000 children 

around the world. And as Representative Smith mentioned, she first brought the concern 

about human trafficking on our flights to his attention in 2009. She has been working 

tirelessly with the Department of Transportation and DHS since that time, and we’ve 

seen wonderful results. 

Nancy, I’ll let you tell them more about it. 

Ms. RIVARD. Thank you so much. 

I’m the president of Airline Ambassadors, who are a nonprofit organization that has 

led advocacy on human trafficking awareness since 2009, when I went to Congressman 

Smith for assistance in getting the word out to airlines. And when the airlines didn’t 

really respond, we took it upon ourselves to develop the first industry-specific campaign 

or training on human trafficking awareness, which we just completed our 70th airport 

training in Haneda Airport in Tokyo last week. Our work will be highlighted at the 

release of the new International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO] Guidelines at the end 

of this month and is being highlighted this week at the International Air Transport 

Association [IATA] meeting in Bangkok as well. 

Because of the FAA Reauthorization Act in the United States of 2016, airlines are 

required to train flight attendants. Most of them are utilizing the Blue Campaign’s excellent online materials. Delta is still first and out front. In 2018 they launched an enhanced 

training with Polaris tailored directly for Delta’s 54,000 employees, initiated an apprentice 

program for trafficking survivors, hosted an event to inspire new employees and also local 

CEOs, as well as new signage in the airport. This year American Airlines joined Delta 

as being a signer of the ECPAT Code of Conduct and JetBlue’s commitment was also recognized at the General Meeting of IATA last year in Cancun. 

International airlines are jumping on board, too. Both Air Asia and Air Emirates 

initiated a major launch of training last year. Copa and AeroMexico joined the international Blue Heart Campaign, they jumped on. 

And there are successes. Airline Ambassadors provided training in Sacramento last 

year, and the airport is proactive for awareness. In February, Sacramento American AirVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:49 Oct 19, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 3194 Sfmt 3194 X:\_HS\WORK\30029.TXT NINA
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lines agent Denice Miracle noticed two girls, 15 and 17, who were traveling on a one-way 

ticket to meet a man they had met on Instagram. Both their parents thought they were 

spending the night with each other. Her alertness saved those two girls from an uncertain 

future. 

Congress can help by strengthening the laws to encourage airlines to provide training 

to all employee groups, including agents, pilots, and more. Funding should be increased 

so Blue Campaign can provide trainings to the training staff of all 33 airlines. The online 

trainings are very good, but many employees do not pay close attention and are not taking 

the issue seriously. Here are three examples. 

Last March, on a flight from Rome to Chicago, all eight flight attendants in the back 

of a 767 were sure that a 50-year-old man was trafficking a 7-year-old Albanian girl. They 

went to the cockpit and they shared this information, and even pointed in the airline 

pilot’s manual where they’re supposed to radio to the airport ahead. The pilots refused, 

saying ‘‘This has never been mentioned in pilot training and we are not going to take the 

chance.’’

Earlier last year also, the agents in Houston, where we had provided a human trafficking awareness training at the airport checking out to go home, they said, ‘‘When is 

somebody going to train us? We see trafficking every day. We just saw it this morning 

and we don’t know what to do.’’ I visited airline operations to ask one of the workers there 

what he would do if a pilot had radioed in a potential human trafficking case. He said, 

‘‘Absolutely nothing. Has nothing to do with aircraft security.’’ More training is needed 

for all employee groups. Funding should specify that ‘‘Train the Trainers’’ for training 

staff of the 33 major airlines should include actual trafficking survivors, as we do in all 

our trainings, to make the issue real and motivating people to emphasize it. 

Airports also play a key role in awareness. We helped Chicago, Las Vegas, and San 

Francisco establish a video for all airport employees in the online badging office. Atlanta, 

Houston, Minneapolis, and Sacramento have also been very proactive. The DHS ad campaign is in most of the customs areas. A21 signage is in New York and Chicago. They 

are also a human trafficking group. The Tip Line app that we developed and give out at 

our trainings has received 1,000 tips since we unveiled it in the last 2 years. 

However, many airports have not been receptive to training, like Los Angeles and 

Miami. They have said training is not needed and there are no resources to support it. 

But we know that training is needed. Donna Hubbard, one of our trainers, noticed 

a woman crying outside a bathroom in Miami Airport. The girl said that she didn’t want 

to get on a plane. A man had bought her a ticket the night before in a bar and she didn’t 

want to get on the plane. She wanted to go to New York and she wanted to go home to 

her mother. Donna contacted the airport police and got them involved. The airport police 

weren’t trained properly in a victim-centered approach, and they intimidated the girl so 

she just said everything was all right. It was Donna who took the initiative and got the 

girl home to her mother, saving her from a horrible future. 

The Human Trafficking Investigations and Training Institute has one of the best 

trainings out there for law enforcement. Most airports and police departments are reluctant to use their limited training funds on human trafficking awareness training because 

it’s not mandatory at the state level. Training resources need to be increased for training 

of travel industry personnel. 

8

Motivating the private sector—although the private sector is critical in this fight, airlines do not truly understand or appreciate that human trafficking awareness is needed 

and are hesitant to integrate new policies into their corporate cultures. They are nervous 

that vigilante flight attendants will make false accusations and they will end up in a lawsuit. We sent a letter to 24 CEOs of travel companies last year, last March, encouraging 

them to take an extra step also to hire human trafficking survivors. Not one CEO 

responded, except for the American Bus Association, which is demonstrative of their social 

responsibility. 

The critical infrastructure of our transportation system can no longer be used as a 

tool to implement human trafficking or modern-day slavery. It’s the fastest-growing crime 

in the world, linked to drug trafficking, human smuggling, arms trafficking, and terrorism. It is also a cabin safety issue. 

In the words of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the largest flight 

attendant union in the world: ‘‘We are committed not only to preparing our membership 

to recognize and report suspected incidents of human trafficking, but also to raise public 

awareness of the problem. Putting an end to human trafficking will require a coordinated 

effort and a commitment of the entire transportation industry.’’

Thank you. 

Ms. PARKER. Thank you, Nancy. I’d like to welcome next—[applause]—oh, please do. 

I’d like to welcome next Carol Smolenski. She’s the executive director and one of the 

founders of ECPAT-USA, which stands for End Child Prostitution and Trafficking. She’s 

been working in the field of children’s rights for 18 years, and she is a longtime nationally 

recognized leader, especially in the area of commercial sexual exploitation and child trafficking. She, at ECPAT, oversaw the development of the first research project on child 

trafficking in New York City and two other research projects about commercial sexual 

exploitation of children. She was the project director for the New York City Community 

Response to Trafficking Projects in New York, a multifaceted groundbreaking project to 

inform communities at risk for human trafficking about the Federal antitrafficking law 

and to help them obtain better protections for victims. And may I just say that Carol and 

ECPAT have been instrumental working with hotel and lodging associations for decades 

with The Code. And I’ll let her tell you more about that. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Thank you, Allison. Thanks for pushing my button for me. 

[Laughter.] 

Good afternoon, everyone. Very happy to be here. I actually am much older than that 

introduction implied because I’ve been actually at this for 27 years. And I guess I have 

to edit my bio—[laughter]—because I’ve been around the block a few times. 

Twenty-seven years ago, ECPAT began advocating for the protection of children from 

exploitation in the context of travel and tourism. Back then nobody was talking about it, 

I can assure you, but I am very proud to talk about today how much progress we have 

made since then. 

Our first success back in 1994 was working to pass extraterritoriality legislation that 

made it possible to prosecute an American in the U.S. for having exploited a child in 

another country. This law was then significantly strengthened in 2003. And I’m also very 

proud to say that U.S. law enforcement does spend a lot of time enforcing this law. 

They’ve been very proactive in comparison to some other countries. This month a Florida 

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1500901444238/Global-Report-Offenders-on-the-Move-Final.pdf 

man named David Lynch was sentenced to 330 years in prison under one of these laws 

for having exploited children in the Philippines, a really great success. 

Our other big success, of course, has been the expansion of the Tourism Child-Protection Code of Conduct that we’ve been talking about. The Code was created in 1998 and 

we introduced it here in North America in 2004. The Code is a set of six voluntary steps 

that companies can take to protect children from sexual exploitation. Carlson Companies, 

the company that owned Radisson and other brands, was the partner right from the start, 

back in 2004. It took several years to get more companies to be willing to pitch in. I’m 

proud to say that in 1022 Wyndham and Hilton both signed The Code of Conduct, and 

today every large U.S. hotel chain has signed The Code. Besides the companies I mentioned above, Marriott, Choice, and Hyatt. These are six of the 10 largest hotel companies 

in the world. Also, as Nancy mentioned, two of the largest domestic air carriers, American 

and Delta, have signed The Code of Conduct. 

One of the most important steps of The Code is staff training. Let me just tell you 

one story about a security agent who worked at a hotel in Massachusetts. I’m going to 

call him Benjamin. His hotel was so well-trained that the minute a trafficker entered his 

property, they implemented their protocol and his whole team knew what to do. Raymond, 

the trafficker, was head of an international trafficking ring who, it was later found out, 

had been selling kids at 400 hotels, in fact, before getting to Massachusetts. He tried his 

luck at Ben’s hotel, but he was stopped in his tracks. He had brought two children to 

Ben’s hotel, but instead of being abused they were identified; and instead of Raymond—

the trafficker—walking free, he was sentenced to the maximum penalty of 30 years in 

prison. Yes, big success. 

So spreading the word to hotel associates is crucial. In 2016 ECPAT partnered with 

Marriott to expand online human training for their associates. The training is now available through the American Hotel and Lodging Association—I’m sure you’ll be hearing 

about that next—and used by hotel brands across the industry. Marriott-branded hotels 

alone trained over 335,000 associates within 15 months of requiring the training—335,000 

people were trained by Marriott within 15 months. So imagine if every hotel brand 

required training. 

According to a 2017 nationwide survey of hotels initiated by ECPAT and carried out 

by NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, over half of the U.S. hotels are 

trained to help prevent child trafficking. This is a huge development that we’re very proud 

of. More information about our work with the hotel industry is in our report called ‘‘No 

Vacancy for Child Sex Traffickers,’’ which is on our website. There are a few copies outside on the table. 

So, while we have come very far, we still have a long way to go. In 2016 ECPAT 

published the results of a 2-year global study on the sexual exploitation of children in the 

context of travel and tourism. Congressman Smith, of course, was at our global launch 

here in the U.S. The study’s 47 recommendations set the stage for the next phase of our 

work. I’m also sharing copies of that with you. The executive summary and recommendations again are outside on the table and also on our website. 1

But one of the most important recommendations calls for all businesses, not just 

those in the travel industry, to take steps to protect children from sexual exploitation, 

10

that all of them adopt child-protection policies, train, and join ECPAT’s Code of Conduct. 

So we are delighted, of course, about the new provisions introduced as part of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act [TVPRA] by Congressman Smith calling for 

U.S. [Government] employee travel to take place with companies that have signed The 

Code. 

But in addition, we are developing a new training for companies that manage corporate travel and events, supported by Carlson Wagonlit Travel and Maritz. So this will 

bring information to travel managers at companies across the private sector. All big 

companies like Apple or Ford or McDonalds hire travel management companies like 

American Express or Carlson or Maritz [or many others] to manage all of their global 

travel for all of their executives. We are now starting a program to train travel management companies [like American Express, Carlson and Maritz] about how to talk to their 

clients [like Apple, or Ford, or McDonald’s] about child-safe travel. This includes encouraging them to have a policy against sexual exploitation of children for their staff who 

travel and encouraging them to train them about what child exploitation looks like to 

make sure that all of those executives traveling around the world know not just how to 

travel safely and responsibly, but how to spot potential child-trafficking cases and what 

to do if they see them. 

So let me just tell you one other story. A woman I’ll call Jenny attended a session 

hosted by Maritz Travel, one of the travel management companies. They were having a 

business meeting in Mexico. One of the awareness-raising sessions was about human trafficking. On her way home from that conference in Mexico she saw a woman with a plastic 

bag as luggage who looked disheveled and looked not quite right. She thought that the 

situation, there was just something wrong, so she reported her suspicions. And she was 

right: the girl she saw was a human trafficking victim and she was rescued because of 

this woman. 

Of course, the sexual exploitation of children also happens outside of the context of 

travel and tourism. One of the fastest-growing areas that children are exploited in is 

through the production of child abuse imagery, commonly called child pornography. Most 

people are not aware of the vast extent of this problem—the National Center on Missing 

and Exploited Children cyber tip line received over 10.2 million reports in 2017. The 

Europe-based Internet Watch Foundation reported that in 2017 that 55 percent of the 

images were children 10 years old or younger. It also reported that in these pictures, the 

content showing the rape or sexual torture of children is up by 5 percent, from 28 percent 

to 33 percent. 

This is a huge, horrific problem that we are yet to grapple with both as a country 

and really globally. We will soon be issuing a report for recommendations that include 

things like stronger background checks for anyone who comes in contact with children; 

more oversight of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, 

which registers website names; among many other recommendations. It’s a complex and 

growing industry that needs a range of responses, but that definitely includes government 

regulation and oversight. 

So, as we talk about legislative priorities, I just want to thank members of the House 

who were involved in the successful package of FOSTA [Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act]/

SESTA [Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act] legislation. It was a hard-won victory, and we 

appreciate your offices who might be here who had led the charge in spite of opposition 

11

from the tech industry. It does, I feel like, call for the pathway for additional regulation 

to counter the huge growth of children being exploited online. 

And second, of course, many of your offices have been instrumental in moving along 

TVPA reauthorization. Thank you so much again. The House-passed bill was particularly 

strong and made a number of adjustments that we strongly supported. We understand 

they are very close to a final conference agreement. We look forward to endorsing the bill 

that will be sent to the president. 

So we’ve made great strides in the protection of children over all of these years. But 

as the problem of child exploitation constantly adapts to a changing world—moving off 

the streets and online, going behind the doors of private residences—we have to be ever 

more adept at responding. We cannot lag behind the abusers and traffickers who spend 

every minute trying to figure out ways to get around the laws. We have to work faster. 

We have to work smarter. We will. We’ve been doing this. We can do this. 

The travel industry is one of the biggest industries in the world, which is a means 

for exploitation to take place. But the good news is that one of the biggest industries in 

the world is mobilizing to stop it. I am really proud of this, and I’m looking forward to 

working with all of you to continue this fight. 

Thank you. [Applause.] 

Ms. PARKER. Thank you, Carol. 

Next, I’d like to welcome Craig Kalkut. Craig is the vice president of government 

affairs at the American Hotel and Lodging Association, where he leads AH&LA’s efforts 

in the areas of travel promotion, tax, and enterprise issues such as terrorism risk insurance, and patent reform. He joined the association after nearly 8 years in the U.S. Senate, 

most recently as the chief counsel for Senator Amy Klobuchar and the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights. Craig has been very 

helpful as we’ve refined the TVPRA, and I look forward to hearing more about what the 

Hotel Association has been doing. 

Mr. KALKUT. Great. Well, thank you, Allison. Thank you for having us here today. 

Thank you, Congressman Smith, for your years of devotion and passion on this issue. 

And thank you, again, to you, Allison, on your work with us and all the stakeholders on 

your boss’ great legislation to make it as effective as it possibly can be. 

I also want to recognize other champions that we’ve worked with that have pushed 

through legislation on the Hill: my old boss Senator Klobuchar, but also Senator Grassley, 

Senator Cornyn, Senator Portman, Senator Blumenthal; and then on the House side, in 

addition to Rep. Smith, Representatives Wagner, Walters, Bass, and many others who 

have worked on this. 

So, to step back for a moment, I joined the American Hotel and Lodging Association 

just over 4 years ago after working on Capitol Hill. And I think a couple weeks into my 

job I got a phone call from a Senate office asking what our industry was doing on human 

trafficking. And I was honestly taken aback and confused. I didn’t know why they were 

calling us, why they were asking. Even though I had worked on human trafficking on 

Capitol Hill, I hadn’t come across the connection to hotels. So, you know, I told them I 

would look into it and get back to them, and I didn’t know what I was going to find. 

So I started asking around the office and asking our members, and was incredibly 

pleased to find out that we indeed had been very engaged on this issue. I found out very 

quickly perhaps the most significant thing, or most significant single action we’ve taken 

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was in 2013, the year before I joined the association, we had worked with Carol and her 

team at ECPAT to design a training program, an online training module geared specifically for hotel employees on human trafficking. And Carol mentioned in 2016 this was 

revamped with ECPAT again and Marriott, as well as Polaris, and so it’s a new and 

improved version of that program. And as she said, Marriott has trained over 335,000 

employees already. I know a couple of our other major members have told me recently 

they have each trained over 50,000. So just from those three companies alone you’re 

talking 450,000 people trained in the last couple years. And it’s not just those companies; 

those are the ones that happen to have the most up-to-date statistics. 

So our efforts on trafficking really focused on two key pillars. The first, training, and 

I’ve sort of already touched on that. The other is raising awareness. And so we do whatever we can to do that. And, of course, these two things work together. The more people 

are aware, the more they are going to have their companies get trained, have their colleagues get trained, and work with others in the industry to increase training. 

So, in terms of raising awareness, we’ve taken a number of steps. I speak on panels 

like this one whenever I have the privilege of being invited to speak. Two weeks ago I 

was in Atlanta speaking with the attorney general of Georgia, who has been a leader on 

the issue of human trafficking, at an event that was attended by over 200 people—almost 

all hotel employees—who were there to be trained by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. 

So the attorney general sort of set the framework and talked about his statewide efforts, 

and then GBI—the Bureau of Investigation—came and did an actual training. 

And so the ECPAT-HLA-Marriott-Polaris training is one training, but there are 

others out there. Sometimes they’re done by law enforcement. DHS and the Blue Campaign have materials and training available. So we’re happy to have people train however 

they can most easily find it and wherever they can get it and whatever works best for 

them. And I think the Congressman’s legislation is going to help ensure that even more 

people in the industry are trained, and we think that is vital. I think that’s the most 

important thing we can do in the industry. 

We’ve also invited people to come speak at our events. And so a couple years ago, 

when we had our big legislative fly-in, we invited one of Carol’s employees, Michelle, to 

come speak to our conference. This is our largest gathering of the year, every year. And 

I believe that year she was the only person on the speaking agenda who was not either 

a member of our industry—and typically those are people on our staff or CEOs—or a 

member of Congress. So it just shows the value and priority that we place on trafficking. 

In addition, we take whatever opportunities we can around, as others have mentioned, the Super Bowl—just to put out alerts, sometimes with ECPAT or Polaris other 

partners like the McCain Foundation—just to remind hotel employees, hotel owners, 

guests to be vigilant. And it was also mentioned we make sure to be clear that trafficking 

doesn’t just happen around big events like the Super Bowl, and I think some question 

whether there is even an increase. But whatever the case is, it does present an opportunity to get attention—to get attention in the media and to raise awareness. 

One other step we took a couple years ago was to issue hotel industry principles on 

human trafficking. We did this, again, to elevate it as an issue within our industry and 

also to give some of our members general guidelines and direction as to how to tackle this 

problem. And that is probably most helpful for our small members. Our association has 

members such as Marriott and Hilton and Hyatt, but we also have franchisees who are 

small-business men that own one hotel, and it may be more difficult for them to sort of 

13

grapple with these large issues like human trafficking. And so we issued these principles, 

created these trainings, hold webinars, put out press releases to frequently remind our 

members big and small of the importance of this issue. 

So we’re proud of what we’ve done in the industry. It’s been a commitment over a 

long period of time, as was mentioned. Carlson Hotels, which is one of our major members, was the first signatory to the ECPAT Code of Conduct. That was way back in 2004, 

and since then the other major hotel companies have come onboard as well. And we continue to seek whatever opportunities we can, as I mentioned, to raise the issue, to raise 

awareness, and to get more and more hotel employees trained. 

So thank you and look forward to a discussion. [Applause.] 

Ms. PARKER. Thank you, Craig. 

And, last but not least, we have Nick Shapiro. Nick is the Global Head of Trust and 

Risk Management for Airbnb. He was previously the CIA’s deputy chief of staff and senior 

advisor to CIA Director John Brennan. Shapiro served on the National Security Council 

staff, and was a White House counterterrorism and homeland security aide in the last 

administration. Nick? 

Mr. SHAPIRO. Thank you. First, I want to start by thanking you, Allison, for having 

Airbnb here and for putting this together. 

And thank you so much, Representative Smith, for all of your leadership on this 

issue. 

It’s great to be here with such esteemed colleagues as well, as I’m already learning 

things from everyone on the panel. So it’s an honor to be here. 

As Allison said, my name’s Nick Shapiro. I’m the Global Head of Trust and Risk 

Management at Airbnb. Previously, I was the CIA deputy chief of staff and a senior 

counterterrorism aide to President Obama on the NSC. 

When I left government about 3 years ago, I had no idea where I wanted to go or 

what I wanted to do. I’ve been to Yemen more times than I’ve been to San Francisco and 

did not know what a tech company was going to be like. I very quickly learned that I 

was a little different, I think, than everyone else. My meetings throughout Silicon Valley, 

the meetings I was in with Airbnb, I realized that everyone at Airbnb and the sharing 

economy in Silicon Valley were so optimistic—brilliant, but so optimistic. And I quickly 

found out that maybe I brought a healthy counterbalance to the extreme optimism of the 

sharing economy. I quickly became the guy no one wanted to invite to meetings—you 

know, the buzzkill, the guy who said are you crazy, we can’t do that. But it’s become a 

great partnership, and it’s a partnership that works. And it has to at the scale that we’re 

operating at. 

You know, my team is in charge of making sure that the community in Airbnb is 

safe. We’ve had 300 million guest arrivals to date. We’ve got close to 5 million listings 

in 191 countries. That’s more than the top five hotel chains combined. Tonight, there will 

be 2 million people staying somewhere in the world in an Airbnb. 

Again, we take this extremely seriously. And trafficking is a scourge that absolutely 

has to be eradicated. One of the first things that impressed me about Airbnb, is the 

commitment the company had to making sure that we were going to use all of our technological advances to fight that issue. 

So what we put together shortly after I arrived was a five-point strategy for how we 

were going to make sure that the problem of trafficking doesn’t become a problem in 

14

Airbnb. As the new kid on the block, we have the ability to leverage the expertise and 

the learnings and the experience of those who have been doing this for decades, and so 

we tried to put that to use and we developed this five-point strategy. 

The first is partnerships. Again, people have been doing this long before Airbnb 

existed and there’s so much good work out there, so we needed to go out there and find 

that work. So we’ve worked with the Blue Campaign, which they do have amazing materials. We’ve worked with Thorn. We just signed a partnership with Polaris. And what 

these orgs have brought to us is a skill set and an expertise that, frankly, the company 

didn’t have internally. So we have been almost like a vacuum cleaner, just sucking up 

as much as we possibly can to make sure that we set out this program the right way. 

Second—as lots of people have mentioned—trainings, education, and awareness. 

We’ve taken all of the lessons learned, all of the training materials, and we’ve implemented programs to teach all of our frontline employees—our customer service agents, our 

trust and safety agents—what they need to look for in order to spot trafficking, as well 

as what they can do when they come across a survivor to make sure it’s handled the best 

way possible. 

The third pillar of our strategy is, I think, the most exciting. It lets us go on offense. 

It’s our technological advantage. You know, Airbnb is lucky. We sit at the intersection of 

technology, travel, and hospitality. We have some of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley. 

Every single reservation on Airbnb is scored ahead of time for risk. So we use machine 

learning, behavioral analysis, predictive analytics, instantly evaluating hundreds of different signals, looking to see if there is anything suspicious about a reservation so we can 

stop suspicious behavior before it actually takes place. We can actually stop the trafficking 

before it happens in an Airbnb. 

We’ve got 10 years now of address history—or reservation history, in a sense, so we’re 

able to teach our model more every single day, what looks different about this reservation. 

And we learn from Polaris and from the Blue Campaign, and from everyone else who has 

done this, and we feed all of that information into this model, and it has become an 

unbelievably successful tool that we’re making smarter every single day. 

We use PhotoDNA, you know, and so every single photo, message, picture on Airbnb 

gets screened through PhotoDNA and it matches with NCMEC’s CEI—Child Exploitation 

Imagery Database—to make sure that there is no CEI on Airbnb, and if it is, it’s rooted 

out. We background check every single host and guest in the U.S., and every host and 

guest all over the world gets screened against financial sanctions and global terrorist 

watch lists. 

Traffickers have tried to take advantage of the Internet, as we all know. They use 

the anonymity of the Internet, but it’s a double-edged sword for them because they need 

the Internet to also advertise and to make known where people can go to do this abhorrent act. So that’s where we go. At Airbnb, not only do we do all of this risk scoring and 

the background checks that I talked about, but we are screening the dark web. We are 

using the sites that prosecutors tell us, that we learn from the cases that they run 

against, that our coordination with law enforcement and intelligence tell us. So we are 

on those very sites, and we are looking for those bad actors. 

You have to again, you know, advertise in some way, so often there has to be a contact number, contact information given, an IP address. Things like that nature we’re 

screening, we’re looking for, and if any of that shows up on Airbnb, again, we can stop 

15

it before it actually happens and really help ensure that Airbnb is a place where this 

behavior is not going to be tolerated, and it’s not going to continue to grow. 

Fourth is our coordination with law enforcement and intelligence, and we work with 

Interpol, work with a lot of my former colleagues throughout the intelligence community 

in the world. And we take every opportunity we can to seek out advice from them on what 

we can be looking for. Again, we have these technological advances, we have these tools 

that we just need to feed information to, we just need to teach it the right things to find, 

and we can make such a great dent in this problem we think. 

Fifth is probably the most fun, to be honest. It is proactive communication and public 

engagement. You know, talking about a horrible issue like trafficking is not what people 

want when they are going on Airbnb to plan their adventurous travel or their dream vacation, but we need to. Not talking about this and hiding it, or sweeping it under the rug, 

hoping it doesn’t become a problem is not going to do anything except encourage the 

problem to grow and to fester. It is not going to help eradicate it. That’s why we don’t 

do that. We talk about this very hard topic as publicly as possible because I think it’s 

a deterrent. We want the traffickers to know that we are looking for them, that we are 

screening our site for them—kind of, ‘‘it’s not going to happen on my watch’’ type thing. 

We want them to know that we are all over these dark websites. We are everywhere that 

they think they’re hiding. That’s where we go, and we are looking for them to make sure 

they don’t do this on Airbnb. 

So again, there is so much more work that needs to get done. We are learning more 

every day, and we want to learn from the folks who have been doing this a lot longer 

than we have. We’re excited to learn more. I’m going to spend more time here tomorrow 

meeting with a lot of folks on the Hill and a lot of bosses of the folks in this room, and 

I’m looking forward to hearing their suggestions, and looking forward to get in some time 

with other folks on the panel, and I’m happy to answer any questions. 

Ms. PARKER. Thank you, Nick. 

I’d like to open the floor to questions from the audience first. Any questions burning? 

If so, we have a mic to your right. Please identify yourselves. I so appreciate the very 

practical work each of you do in fighting trafficking within your specific industries, and 

Carol and Nancy, you shared stories of success. Craig, do you have a success story that 

you would like to share? 

Mr. KALKUT. Sure. We hear them as we talk to our members or travel around the 

country, and sometimes they make the news, sometimes they don’t. 

One that sticks out in my mind is one that took place in New Orleans last year, and 

there was a 12-year-old boy who was with two older guests, and a hotel employee who 

had been trained thought something looked a little wrong, thought it looked off—sort of 

phrases you’ve heard before, and that’s often the key. And there are specific signs that 

can be taught. We have a lot of them in our training. But sometimes I think the most 

important part of the training—sorry, I’m getting a little off topic here—but sometimes 

the most important part of the training is just reminding hotel employees, and airline 

employees, and whoever it is that this is a problem, that you can help. You should help. 

You have to help. And so when people see something they know to act. And then when 

you give them the specific instructions, then they are even better equipped to act. 

And so this hotel employee noticed this young boy with two older men, something 

seemed off, and then she heard one of the men say, I think I’m going to take this one 

16

home with me. And so—you know, so the alarm bells went off, and she went to her manager at the hotel. They reported it to the police, as it’s supposed to work. The police came, 

and lo and behold, the boy had been missing for 3 days and was in fact a victim of sex 

trafficking. And so because of that hotel employee’s awareness and decision to say something to her boss, this boy was saved. 

I think one of the reasons it stands out in my mind is that, although this is overwhelmingly a problem for women and girls, there are men and boys who are victims. And 

so I think it demonstrates again the importance of training, importance of being vigilant, 

and knowing that you should take action. 

Ms. PARKER. Question from Representative Smith? 

Mr. SMITH. I’ll just be brief, and then if others would have questions, please sing out. 

Nick Shapiro, I’ll just say if you are buzzkill, we need more of it. [Laughs.] And I 

thank you for piercing that—you know, it’s good to be optimistic, but we need people who 

are sober, aggressive, and realize that this is going on right under our noses, so thank 

you for bringing your skill set to bear. 

All of you are just tremendous. I would ask Airbnb—you could have so good of a 

chilling effect that the traffickers decide to go elsewhere, which is a good thing as long 

as elsewhere is also doing a simultaneous standup of these efforts. 

If I could ask you, have you—has this led to any prosecutions, or do you think it’s 

more of a fact that the bad guys feel, don’t go there because you’ll get caught? 

I would also ask, if I could—Tracey, how does an Uber driver actually do it? Do they 

do it while they are going from one area to another with their fare, or do they do it as 

soon as they let that person off? And how do they do it surreptitiously so that person in 

the back doesn’t take some retaliatory action? Is there a code? And are there examples 

where police responded quickly? Because we all know Uber is there on the spot. I’ve been 

amazed at times when I’ve been anywhere in Washington, you contact Uber and they’re 

there. How quickly are the police there to ascertain whether or not it’s a bad situation 

that they’re involved with? 

And I would ask Carol and maybe Nancy Rivard if you could just speak to what kind 

of pushback do you get? We know and you know—because you testified at previous 

hearings that I had—both of you—there were some airlines that were unwilling to do it. 

Yes, American Airlines was one of them, and now that seems not to be the case. Is that 

fear of some kind of legal obligation or vulnerability? Is that over with? Do they realize, 

because of the good work of what the Blue Campaign is doing as well, that they’re on 

the side of the angels and on protection, and that acquiescence and indifference is really 

being on the side of the traffickers? They are obviously the conduit to getting people from 

here to there. You could speak to that as well. 

You go first, Nick? 

Mr. SHAPIRO. Sure. Thank you, and again, thank you so much for all the attention 

that you focus on this issue. 

I’d say two things. One, we absolutely don’t want to kick the can down the road. I 

want to make that crystal clear. You know, we have to do everything we can to prevent 

it from happening at Airbnb, but we do that so we can help eradicate it across the travel 

and tourism industry. And that’s frankly where we’ve seen a lot of help from Polaris. 

Polaris saw early, I think, in us this risk scoring that we do and the technological advantages that we throw at this problem. And they’re actually connecting us to Delta, to MarVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:49 Oct 19, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 3194 Sfmt 3194 X:\_HS\WORK\30029.TXT NINA
17

riott, and to other parts of the travel industry, and are trying to broker how can we use 

some of our technological advantage with folks who have been doing this for so long and 

can help feed this both ways. So we’ve been working closely with Polaris on that. 

As for prosecutions, it has led to prosecutions, and one thing I recall that I think is 

substantial is there is a specific prosecutor that’s known in trafficking circles in King 

County. The guy is a genius. This is like his life’s mission. It sounds like people know 

who I’m talking about. And we got together and started—realized from my familiarity in 

counterterrorism and how we went after terrorists online, that we should be attacking 

traffickers the same way. So we’ve been starting to develop programs with this prosecutor 

about how you can use personas, and you can get on these chat rooms in a way that really 

hasn’t been done in the trafficking fight. And you can use incentivizing. You know, he 

talks a lot about how it is not enough to just—you know, obviously you can’t arrest the 

survivors—arrest your way out of the problem just like you can’t kill your way out of a 

counterterrorism problem. You need to change behavior. And he’s doing some amazing 

things, working with us, that remind me so much of the same programs we were doing, 

and we’re helping feed the information and the technology into him, who again is treating 

these chat rooms like—you know, it’s going fishing in a sense, and it is picking them off 

one by one, it’s turning them against each other, and it is changing behavior. 

They’ve done amazing things like run ads on the platform that you think, in a sense, 

are positive in a sense for a trafficker. It entices them, and then all of a sudden up will 

come the picture of a little girl whose father can’t go to her birthday party anymore 

because he’s now a registered sex offender—not because he was the trafficker, because he 

was the john. It’s changing the behavior of the buyers and the sellers, and it has been 

wonderful, as Airbnb, to be a part of that conversation and to use the expertise that we 

have from a counterterrorism perspective, from a law enforcement perspective, from an 

intelligence perspective, and from a technological perspective. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. So your question was about pushback from the private sector. This 

is something we faced early on in the hotel industry. You know, as I mentioned, Carlson 

signed in 2004. It took 7 years for another big company to sign. 

There was a lot of concern early on about liability and also about being associated 

with an ugly topic, but we actually, I have to say, have substantially overcome that, at 

least in the hospitality industry. That companies are now proudly talking about the steps 

that they are taking—you know, we used to have to be quite careful with companies about 

how they were depicting their work, their commitment to The Code of Conduct, their recognizing that kids were being bought and sold on their properties. And it was quite a—

sort of a diplomatic dance we did. 

They now are very comfortable talking about it because now they know they are actually putting in place the steps that they have to put in place, and it’s really quite gratifying to see. We don’t get pushback from the hospitality industry so much anymore. 

And as for the airline industry, it’s actually been a little bit more difficult. Maybe 

Nancy can talk about that. While the two big companies have signed on, the others 

haven’t, and I don’t know as much about what’s behind that. It doesn’t mean that they 

are not taking steps because we have seen that in the hospitality industry. For a long 

time, companies kept assuring us they were taking steps but didn’t want to sign The 

Code, and didn’t want to sort of—as we put it—go all the way. They wanted to sort of 

tiptoe down it, and now they’re starting to feel more comfortable. And so I am curious, 

actually, about what Nancy says about the airline industry. 

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Ms. RIVARD. Well, I think—thank you, Carol. I agree with everything you’ve said, and 

it’s beginning to change. I reached out again to every major airline in the United States, 

and only one responded to me, to share with me their success stories—only Delta. And 

American signed on—I’m a legacy American Airlines flight attendant—but they said 

nothing. They’re afraid to step out even though our survivor, who is an American Airlines 

flight attendant, is being highlighted in IATA in Bangkok and in Geneva. 

So one idea I had was if the United States would join the international campaign 

for human trafficking called the Blue Heart Campaign, which would coordinate with Blue 

Campaign, which is just an easy way for an airline to—maybe they’re afraid to develop 

the marketing materials, afraid of making a fool of themselves—make it easy and fun for 

them to do it. Mira Sorvino, an actress, is the goodwill ambassador for the Blue Heart 

Campaign. I think that would be a way to push them in that direction. 

I’m also very excited about working with Airbnb and on the new technology. We got 

a standing ovation at the Interpol Conference in both Albania and Dubai about the 

encrypted app that we’ve developed that goes directly to law enforcement and geo-locates 

you. And I would love to coordinate with everybody working on technology—and Uber as 

well on that. We’re excited to be working with both with Uber and the hospitality industry 

in El Salvador and Guatemala next month. 

So we still have a ways to go. We have to push these companies to do the right thing. 

They’re a little nervous still. It’s moving, but slowly. 

Mr. MCKEOWN. I’m just going to hop in real quick on the airline industry. One of 

the things that we do have at the Blue Campaign is the Blue Lightning Initiative. And 

BLI is run by the Custom and Border Protection unit, and we have been able to highlight 

and train 70,000 airline personnel in the United States, and this is one of the things that 

we have been able to get on there. I do agree that there is still work to be done in the 

field, and there is obviously awareness and education is always a good thing to have, and 

the more we know, the better off we are. But we are working within the airline parameters, and I do know that it’s part of federal funding in the FAA Reauthorization Act that 

that training is mandated, and we are working with them. 

So I do agree that we have some more work to do, but with that being said, we 

have—I know with the Blue Campaign and Blue Lightning, we’ve already done around 

70,000 personnel. 

Ms. BREEDEN. Yes, to answer your question, how do they do it—well, there’s many 

ways they do it, but we definitely encourage them safety first. So a lot of times we’ll 

encourage them to call 911, but it means separating yourself from the scene and then 

calling 911. Or again, if they don’t know exactly what’s going on, and they just have their 

intuition, or they’re seeing some of these signs, they could call the national hotline, and 

we encourage them to call the national hotline. And to further answer that question, how 

do they do it, I’ll give you three examples of how they have done it, because I think these 

are great examples, and they showcase other things. 

We had an Uber driver in Sacramento, California, who was providing a trip. Two 

women—adult women—had ordered a trip to a hotel, and they were traffickers. And they 

had a 16-year-old girl sitting in the front seat of that vehicle. And as he was driving them 

to the hotel, they were coaching her about what to do. They were coaching her about how 

to take the money from the person who had bought her. And as they got to the hotel, 

he let them out at the hotel and he pulled a little bit away from the hotel and called the 

19

police. So you asked about response—quickly. The police got there, they were able to 

arrest both of the traffickers, who had ordered that trip as well as arrest the person who 

had purchased that girl. And so that was a quick response. He was recognized by NCMEC 

with a courage award—so the other component of this is that is we need to value and 

acknowledge those folks who are doing these things because they are heroes. Those are 

community heroes. 

So NCMEC did a great job of acknowledging and valuing that person, and we also 

try to play a part—whatever it may be—in fulfilling a need, but making sure that we 

acknowledge and value that driver when they do intervene in a situation like that. 

To give you another example of how they do it, we had a female Uber driver in 

Philadelphia, and a trafficker had purchased an airline flight for a young woman on a 

national airline, flew her to Philadelphia where he ordered an Uber to pick her up, and 

take her to a national hotel chain to meet the person who had bought her online. There’s 

three components there, right—three times that there could have been an intervention. 

That female Uber driver was able to identify her as a victim of human trafficking and 

was able to call police and provide her aid, as well as help police with making an arrest 

on the trafficker who had sent her. 

Another example of how they do it is in Phoenix, Arizona, we had an Uber driver 

who—he was a retired Marine. He had just lost his job and just got a divorce. So he 

started driving for Uber to make some money, and he was living in a hotel. There was 

a trafficker also living at that hotel who approached him and said, are you an Uber 

driver? And he said yes. He said, I would like for you to do some transportation for me 

and transport some of my girls. And by that—by the information, the training that they 

had received—in all three of those cases—he contacted the police. He contacted the 

Phoenix police department, and they were able to use him in a sting, and he cooperated, 

and he was in an undercover sting to catch those traffickers and put them behind bars. 

In all three of those cases there were arrests made. So let me tell you that the other 

component behind the scenes is we have a law enforcement outreach team that consists 

of local and federal retired police officers who go around the country, as well as around 

the globe, and they meet with police departments to educate them on how police can use 

our technology as evidence to hold people accountable because that component is very 

important, and that’s accountability. So it’s important that we work with police, that we 

help them in not only having the evidence and the information they need, but to put these 

folks behind bars because that’s where they belong for doing these type of things. 

So we do have a law enforcement outreach team that also works hand in hand with 

those detectives on those investigations and gets them the information that they need. In 

the Philadelphia case, they were able to get the information of somebody who had ordered 

that trip, or that girl, and helped identify that trafficker. So that’s an important component of behind the scenes of how they do it, and how we’re supporting law enforcement 

in making arrests in these cases. 

Ms. SMOLENSKI. Can I say one more thing? I just want to pitch another idea about 

what to do to deter people from sexually exploiting children, especially during travel and 

tourism. 

When the first extraterritoriality law was passed in 1994—we started talking about 

this—the idea of posting some kind of signage or alert that it’s against the law to exploit 

a child in every country, because some people traveling think it’s okay if you do it in 

20

another country where they’re poorer than us, et cetera. And so we’ve been seeking to get 

signage in U.S. airports in the outgoing areas—where all of those other warnings are 

posted—that says something about it’s also against the law to exploit children everywhere, and citing the law. 

So been pitching that idea for a long time, and I’m just pitching it for this crowd, 

as well—just something to think about. 

Ms. RIVARD. Oh, and I wanted to make one more comment real quickly about private 

sector. One action that any corporation can take is to provide jobs for trafficking survivors. You know, the airlines employ thousands of people that work as reservations 

agents. They work from home. These trafficking survivors could easily be trained. And 

many of them have children, they could work from home, and this is part of what they 

need to get their life back together, so it’s an immediate first step to encourage corporations. 

Ms. PARKER. Thank you all for your responses to that question. And we’re running 

out of time, but we’ve got two questions from the audience. The first is from Saber Rock. 

QUESTIONER. Good evening, everyone. My name is Saber Rock. I work for Airline 

Ambassador[s] as a country manager, plus I am subject matter expert for military forces 

in Afghanistan. 

So I have two questions, one question for Ms. Nancy. Do you have any connection 

in Afghanistan? Do you have plan to work for human trafficking in Afghanistan? Because 

our military forces in Afghanistan have a lot of problems for human trafficking there. The 

Taliban and ISIS, they are using kids against our military forces, against our U.S. military forces. They are doing suicide bombings. They are using many different things. So 

I brought that message. Please answer that. 

And from Uber, Ms. Tracey, a lot of the linguists—and I was the senior linguist of 

10,800 interpreters in Afghanistan while I was working for General John Allen as a cultural advisor—the question is, a majority of the Special Immigrant Visa [SIV] interpreter 

who work for U.S. Government, they came by SIV to United States. In 50 states we have 

11,000 families of interpreter, and the interpreter, they are—92 percentage of the interpreter, they are driving Uber. Why? Because they didn’t find any job, because they are 

the green card holder. 

Number 2, they’re asking every day that why the Uber is not signing up or hiring 

us as a[n] employee? Because they can’t buy house, they can’t feed their kids, or they can’t 

treat their family in Afghanistan as well because their family is in danger in Afghanistan. 

But they cannot afford that much money that they make from Uber. The living in the 

United States is very expensive, you know. They pay more than a thousand dollars rent 

per month. Plus, they have——

Ms. PARKER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rock. We’re running out of time. 

QUESTIONER. Thank you so much. 

Ms. PARKER. And the next question? 

QUESTIONER. I just have a question for Uber. I think probably all of us ride Uber, 

and I’ve talked to a lot of my Uber drivers and asked them about trafficking and if they’ve 

been trained, and most of them kind of have a blank stare like, no, how do I do it? And 

I would like to know and have everybody know like how do you tell your Uber drivers? 

Is there a URL? Or what would they do to encourage Uber drivers to get the training? 

Because I think it’s optional. 

21

Ms. BREEDEN. Well, to answer the first question, I’ll—to be honest with you, I don’t 

have a lot of background or knowledge on that. What I will tell you is that we—we’re 

open to receiving information, learning, and listening, and open to doing better, wherever 

that might be. So I wish I had a better answer for you, but I don’t in that space. 

To answer your question about training and about education for Uber drivers, I ask 

when I get in the vehicle, have you received the information about human trafficking? Do 

you know anything about human trafficking? And I’ll find drivers that have not seen it. 

Or I’ll find drivers that—just like when I was in LA the other day—who told me he had 

received it, and he was excited about receiving it, because I love taking those stories back 

to my executives, and the people who are making decisions around this to know that this 

is meaningful and it matters. 

So it is optional because, you know, our drivers are independent contractors, so it’s 

very difficult as far as training being required—that’s an employer-employee relationship 

so it makes it a little difficult, but we’re doing our best, and we’re trying to do better in 

getting that information out in different ways. So some of the ways that we’re doing it 

is through the in-app technology and sending information through the app, and trying to 

get them to engage and go to a driver resource page. And we have a driver resource page 

that lives 24/7 for riders. We have a section where riders can learn more information, and 

we try to drive them to that information at times. So we try to drive them through our 

in-app technology and using that, as well, to get them to that place. 

And what I can tell you about that, what’s really exciting about that is we’ve seen 

four times the engagement than what we’ve seen with Uber Ice Cream. So what does that 

tell me? That tells me that people want this information, that our drivers want this 

information. And it’s a good thing to make it available for them. 

So we use our in-app technology. We’re also trying to use driver appreciation events 

to raise awareness around this, so we’re partnered with all the national partners and 

leaders in this space, and so we invite them to those driver events, as well as local 

organizations, as well as local law enforcement to help us educate our drivers, and try 

to bring them to an event where we celebrate them and encourage them to come in and 

hear more about it. 

And to be honest with you, we’re listening and working with our partners, like how 

can we do this, thinking outside of the box. How can we get this information to our drivers 

through our technology? Because we have millions of drivers, millions of eyes and ears 

on the road out there that can be making impact and creating and making a difference 

in this space. 

So we’re definitely listening, learning, and trying to think of new ways and innovative 

ways that we can use our technology, as well as using the old ways of doing things like 

inviting people with food, and inviting people and encouraging them to want to learn more 

about this, but we’re also using that technology that we have to try to think of creative 

ways to get that information to them and get them interested in it about learning more. 

Ms. RIVARD. And, Saber, to your question, we know that—well, both forced child marriage and child terrorism—suicide bombers are being recruited by the Taliban and ISIS. 

And we are planning a training in Kabul Airport. We’re the first NGO to move in there 

and bring this issue public to empower women and awareness in Afghanistan. So we’re 

looking forward to working on that with you. 

22

Ms. PARKER. We are out of time. Thank you all for being here today, for sharing with 

us your expertise, and for what you do every day to keep our air, our streets, our hotels, 

our homes free from human trafficking. 

Please join me in thanking everyone here. [Applause.] 

If you’ve missed any part of this briefing, both the video recording and the transcript 

will be—and the testimonies will be available on the Helsinki Commission website. Thank 

you so much for joining us today. 

[Whereupon, at 4:19 p.m., the briefing was adjourned.] 

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