ECPAT-USA, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit raising awareness of and fighting human trafficking of children, will launch a campaign July 30 in which its goal is to train 20,000 event industry professionals by July 30, 2020, on what they can do to prevent and respond to human trafficking. The year-long program, named 20BY20, will kick off in conjunction with the United Nations' designated World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.
David Peckinpaugh, president of Maritz Global Events, is the ambassador for the campaign. "We signed The Code through ECPAT more than seven years ago and have given ECPAT financial grants to support [human trafficking-awareness] training," he told BTN. The Code stands for the Tourism Child-Protection Code of Conduct, which is a voluntary set of business principles that hospitality companies can implement to prevent sexual exploitation and trafficking of children. "They reached out for me to be the ambassador around this new campaign. Letter and emails went out to the database within our industry, the hospitality meetings industry, requesting others to get involved and to continue to build awareness" around the issue.
Human trafficking is one of the world's fastest-growing crimes, and it unfortunately exploits the travel industry. BTN will publish an in-depth feature on this topic in its August issue.
Nonprofit ECPAT-USA has been fighting this crime and offers training videos in multiple languages for airlines, hotels and travel industry professionals to learn about trafficking signs and what to do. The video, which will be promoted to meeting and event professionals for 20BY20, debuted in January. It also applies to travel managers and has already been viewed by more than 3,000 individuals.
The 20BY20 campaign is also recruiting business companies to sign on as an Advocate or Champion sponsor. Champion levels require a donation; an Advocate must agree to promote the campaign and actively encourage employees to get trained. Founding Business Events Champions include CorpTrav, CWT, the International Association of Exhibitions and Events, IMEX Group and PCMA.
Maritz Global Events created its own internal training modules on the topic and last year made the program mandatory for employees, Peckinpaugh said. It's part of employee onboarding and part of training for the travel director team. The company also is promoting the formation of an industry coalition. "We've talked to hotel and event companies, A/V companies, a lot of companies now involved in the fight, and our point of view is: If we could all coalesce and have a combined effort, we'll have a greater impact," he said.
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