A travel company based in Oshkosh is raising awareness of the signs of human trafficking ahead of the NFL Draft in Green Bay in April.
Fox World Travel held an event on Jan. 10 to highlight a toolkit it released last year. It includes flyers, social media posts and information detailing how to respond to suspected human trafficking. The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families also has a guide detailing potential red flags for child sex trafficking and exploitation.
Kelly Chartre, vice president of marketing and lead for community engagement and philanthropy at Fox World Travel, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that this information goes beyond the draft in April.
Stay informed on the latest news
Sign up for WPR’s email newsletter.
“It’s not the actual activity of the draft. It’s really just the influx of the people,” Chartre said. “No matter what the large event is in Wisconsin, that truly is just where traffickers have the opportunity because they’re really hidden by so many people. It’s really the prevention and education that we have to focus on.”
Chartre tells WPR’s Kate Archer Kent how organizations like hotels and travel professionals can combat human trafficking.
The following was edited for clarity and brevity.
KAK: I was recently in a hotel in New York, and the hotel had numerous warning signs about human trafficking throughout the lobby. It felt like the hotel was making an effort there. Is this type of engagement typical for hotels?
Kelly Chartre: Typical for hotels, typical for airports. You’re going to look for things like: people who are under distress, they are disoriented, they don’t have control over their documents. Those types of behaviors really trigger us to say, “is this the situation I should be thinking about?”
Those people that work at the airports and work at the hotels are extra trained in what to do, where to go and how to handle the situations, because that’s really where the events are taking place. It is absolutely traditional that that’s going to happen in an airport, that that’s going to happen in a hotel … without having that involvement from the local hotel staff, you just don’t have that kind of protection available.
KAK: What can the hospitality industry do to be a leader here and to help other businesses and take a lead on this issue?
KC: I love that the hotels really do get proactive with their communication. But I think what it comes down to is that opportunity to keep that message alive and out in front of people that are in the hotel.
Some of the things that you’re looking for in the hotel space: if rooms are getting cleaned far more often than what the normal turn would be. If you’re seeing a tremendous amount of things like towels and sheets being moved out of hotel rooms, if you’re seeing an influx of people going in and out and in and out of hotel rooms. Those truly are triggers that we should all be aware of, and those staff at the hotels are all thoroughly trained.
So really it’s the communication … it really is about awareness, awareness training, knowledge and banding together as a community.
KAK: What policies and practices would you like other businesses and other industries to adopt to better prevent human trafficking?
KC: I don’t even know so much if it has to do with different industries, because so many of us travel for so many reasons. It could be somebody coming from Appleton and just going to Green Bay for the day to enjoy one of the amenities up there, and or it could just be us taking off on spring break.
To me, it’s really just about just banding together and really being thoughtful about what you’re seeing and definitely erring on the side of action. Because I think so many times we say, “Is that … could that be? I wonder if?” If that was my family that was being impacted, I’d sure want a stranger to err on the side of caution.
Editor’s note: Fox World Travel is the contracted travel agency for the Universities of Wisconsin. WPR is a service of UW-Madison.
