WUNRN
TIME: http://time.com/3525640/sex-trafficking-victim-prostitution-hotel/
http://time.com/3525640/sex-trafficking-victim-prostitution-hotel/
HOW TO
SPOT A SEX TRAFFICKING VICTIM AT A HOTEL
Happens in five star hotels as well as slummy ones
·
Belinda Luscombe - October 28, 2014
As
it has become clear over the last few years that sex trafficking takes place on
every continent (O.K., maybe not Antarctica), approaches to defining it and
ending it have changed. While there are ghastly situations in which young girls’ virginity is sold off by
their debt-stricken parents in Cambodia, the reality is that western
countries are by no means immune to the trade. Runaways, girls who have fallen for the wrong
guy, and naive women who have traveled from
another country on the promise of a legitimate job can get
trapped in prostitution rings anywhere.
One
front in this battle has been the hotel industry. Traffickers like to use
hotels to ply their trade, since they can get in and make some money and then
move on before they attract too much attention. Neighbors tend to take a dim
view of brothels and report them to the authorities. “It happens in hotels that
are five star hotels and it happens in the sleaziest, slummiest rent by the
hour hotels,” says Tammy Lee Stanoch, VP of corporate affairs for Carlson.
Perhaps
because of this, some hoteliers were early activists in the anti-trafficking
cause, including Marilyn Carlson Nelson, the former chairman of the chain
(which owns a bunch of hotels including the Park Plaza, Country Inns and Suites
and all the different types of Radisson). Initially, this was against the
advice of their legal teams, who were leery of highlighting any illegal
activity that was taking place within the hotels’ walls, but now many hotel
chains, including Hilton, have signed on to the ECPAT
Code of Conduct. “These women and children are being victimized in
hotels, and whether they’re our hotels or our competitors, we’re going to take
a stance on it,” says Stanoch. “Hotels need to be part of the solution because
unfortunately that’s where many of these crimes happen.”
Many hotels now train their
employees to watch for red flags, and the people at Carlson agreed to share
some of what they’ve learned.
One of the key times is at
check in. Paying with cash is obviously a cause for concern, especially if the
reservation was originally made with a credit card. When an older man or woman
checks in with younger women who don’t appear to be his or her children—they
speak a different language, they’re distant from him, they look dazed or
afraid, or if they’re made up to look older than they really are—that often
means the women are not there willingly. A bunch of guys checking in with two
young Latvian women alarmed this hotel employee, who
went called the cops on them and broke up a trafficking ring. And then there’s
the luggage clue; legitimate travelers usually bring a bunch of bags with them.
For hotels, the next line of
defense after a vigilant front desk clerk is the in-house security team.
Sometimes traffickers will check in to the room and only much later smuggle the
girls and the johns into the hotel through a side door. “Very few women are
being paraded by the front desk,” says Stanoch. Hotels have put in very
sophisticated camera equipment, but that doesn’t mean they catch everything.
Rooms which are being used by traffickers typically have a lot of men coming
and going, and sometimes have men congregating outside the door, in the lobby
or in the parking lot.
FBI San Antonio Special Agent
Michelle Lee told local media after an undercover sting in June that
traffickers often use two rooms. “One room is the working hotel room and the
other room is where everyone else usually stays and they have just a few, very
limited belongings.” Stanoch notes that the hotel staff moves pretty fast, once
their suspicions have been raised. “This isn’t something we wait on,” says
Stanoch, about how bringing in law enforcement. “It all happens very quickly.”
The
hotel housekeepers are key players here too, since traffickers tend to decline
cleaning services for days on end. They’re also less likely to tidy up, so the
housekeeping staff may find large amounts of condoms and lubricant when they do
get in to the room. (Stanoch says people who are having consensual sex
generally tend to be neater with their paraphernalia. Who knew? ) Cleaners are
also trained to watch out for a large number of computers or cell phones in a
room. And then there’s porn. If one room is watching an unusual amount of porn
on their hotel TV, that can trigger suspicions especially if it happens in
tandem with other signs of trafficking. Not always, of course. “We are very
sensitive to our guest’s privacy,” says Stanoch. “If something is suspicious in
the guest room, in addition to indicators like a room that has been paid for in
cash or multiple men coming and going, this may be cause for concern.”
Checking on the contents of
another traveler’s room (or their TV habits) is of course frowned upon for
regular guests, but there are things any traveler can watch out for: if you’re
checking in or in the lobby, do the women being checked in have their own
credit cards and forms of identification? Do they look to be in good health? Do
they seem disoriented or disheveled? Are their “boyfriends” significantly
older? Do the men seem to be preventing the women from moving about freely?
There have even been reports of some women having tattoos that mark ownership.
If you’re on the same floor
as a room which seems to have a lot of men hanging around outside, or a
constant stream of visitors, you might want to let the hotel authorities know.
Each of these symptoms on its own could have a perfectly plausible explanation,
but if more than one or two of these warning flags are waving, then it might be
time to tell hotel management of your concerns.
The Polaris Project, which
works to combat slavery of all kinds (more people are enslaved by forced labor
than the sex trade) has just released this awesome map, which identifies the local
trafficking-fighting agencies all over the world. But Carol Smolenski,
executive director of ECPAT USA, suggests that hotel security is your first
line of attack. “It does get more complicated overseas because it depends on
the nationality of the perpetrator and what country you are in,” says
Smolenski. “We still recommend that if people are in a hotel when they notice
something wrong, they should report it to the hotel management.” And if you’re
in the United States, it be worthwhile to keep this number handy, too,
1-888-373-7888, the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
Have the new guidelines many
any difference? Carlson didn’t provide any numbers and some observers are
dubious, but Stanoch is persuaded they have. “Since we’ve started this
training, I’d say the incidence of trafficking has dropped dramatically.” Now
activists want to move further upstream, fighting trafficking at the source, by
supporting organizations that offer vulnerable women training and job skills.