Human Trafficking Awareness - Airline AmbassadorsAirline Ambassadors

Human Trafficking

ECPAT

Current Human Trafficking Events

Recent Human Trafficking Events

Human Trafficking

In August, 2009, an Airline Ambassador humanitarian team rescued an abandoned little girl in Cambodia in 2009. (Read about it here.) On that trip they learned about the dark reality of human trafficking and determined to get involved. The following month on a mission to the Dominican Republic the team promised each other to be alert for anything unusual on flights out. Amazingly, that team correctly identified trafficking incidents on four airlines! Their first “tip” led to the bust of a pornagraphy ring of 82 children.

Congressman Smith, author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, agreed to support AAI’s efforts to outreach to the airline industry. You can read our outreach letter to our colleagues here. You can read the statement from Congressman Chris Smith here.

AAI then worked closely with Customs Border Protection to develop an industry specific training consistent with the Department of Homeland Security’s “Blue Campaign”. The new training was premiered in 2011 in San Francisco with support from Congresswoman Jackie Speier.

Since then Airline Ambassadors teams have provided 82 training presentations to 6,000 front line personnel at airports across the United States as well as in Kiev, Ukraine, read the OSCE press release here, a presentation at Interpol, London for the DISPAX Conference in June 2014 , Budapest, Hungary, Bucaramanga, Colombia, the United Nations, as well as Latvia, Bogota, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Bangkok.

AAI provides seminars with a team of three to four trainers (including survivors of human trafficking) via a power-point presentation and handout materials. The training is tailored to airline / airport personnel, hotel employees, law enforcement and ground transportation. AAI is the first organization to have their curriculum adopted by the (International Tourism Management Institute) and they have received support from 12 members of Congress.

You can see the numerous media on our work on our Media Page.

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