Human trafficking awareness training offered by American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has been given to more than 500,000 hotel workers since early 2020. The milestone for this free training was announced at a American Hotel & Lodging Foundation World Day Against Trafficking in Persons event by AHLA President and CEO Chip Rogers and ECPAT-USA CEO Lori Cohen.
ECPAT-USA, based in Brooklyn, New York, is a leading anti-child trafficking organization in the United States.
That number is in addition to nearly 100,000 Marriott workers who have completed the training, titled “Your Role in Preventing Human Trafficking: Recognize the Signs.” The training was produced by Marriott International in collaboration with ECPAT-USA and Polaris, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that also works to combat and prevent sex and labor trafficking.
“Training plays a critical role in human trafficking prevention, and the fact that we educated nearly 600,000 employees during such a difficult year is a testament to our industry’s commitment to this important cause,” Rogers said. “The hotel industry is united in ending the scourge of human trafficking, and our ‘No Room for Trafficking’ education and awareness efforts will continue until we reach that goal.”
Marriott Training Available to All in 2022
At the event, Tricia Primrose Marriott, global chief communications and public affairs officer for Marriott, announced that her company would make its new enhanced human trafficking awareness training available industry wide in early 2022.
Launched three years ago, AHLA and AHLA Foundation’s anti-trafficking program is designed to help unite the industry around one comprehensive approach to prevent human trafficking, with the goal of training every employee in the industry. Additional resources on the program can be found here.
