As the meetings industry starts to ramp up with spring and early summer meetings, it’s important to remind our travelers about the little things they can do to help prevent Human Trafficking globally. We are seeing more and more visual reminders about how to report Human Trafficking in airports, restrooms, restaurants, and hotels, and in more noticeable places than ever. It’s been common for me to see people taking pictures of these signs on their phones, so they always have that information handy.

Blue Campaign is a national public awareness campaign designed to educate the public, law enforcement, and other industry partners to recognize the indicators of human trafficking and how to appropriately respond to possible cases.  One Voice, One Mission. End Human Trafficking. There are an incredible number of resources on the site. The first one we’ll highlight is The Learning Center, where Hospitality Industry Resources are highlighted as part of a toolkit. This Toolkit is designed to assist employers in communicating to their employees how they can help with the fight.

Other easy-to-use resources are the Blue Campaign’s Indicator Cards. They are available in 39 languages and can be easily printed and put in your wallet. The card gives you the differences between human trafficking and human smuggling on the front side, and questions you can ask yourself on the back of the card about a possible trafficking situation you may witness.

The Polaris Project is doing all it can to support survivors. This is why Polaris supports the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act (HR 1379), a bipartisan effort to bring relief to victims and survivors of human trafficking. This bill has the potential to make a significant, positive impact on the lives and health of human trafficking survivors by providing resources to expunge their criminal records for crimes committed while they were in their situations of trafficking. Join the many people who are supporting this bill by using the Polaris site to send an email to your members of Congress. Help Support the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act | Polaris

Raise awareness, encourage policy change, monitor supply chains, support anti-trafficking Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and contact authorities if you see something suspicious. Have discussions with your children about the realities of Human Trafficking. This infographic gives you some tips that can help parents to communicate effectively about Human Trafficking. The sad fact is that almost half of all child trafficking cases are facilitated by family members and/or caregivers.  Navigating-the-Unique-Complexities-in-Familial-Trafficking_LOW.pdf. Familial Trafficking can be difficult to identify, and many children don’t even realize that what is happening to them by someone they trust is not normal.

Sharing your knowledge on the Fight Against Human Trafficking with your network of friends and family is a little thing, but the more people who are aware, the more people we might be able to save.

 The best little thing you can do that’s BIG in the fight is that if you SEE something, SAY Something. Call the Hotline. 888-373-7888 in the US or 833-900-1010 in Canada.

 The MPI Anti-Human Trafficking Committee works to create awareness -- across all MPI channels, including chapters, social media, publishing, media and live events -- of the things we can all do to help prevent this terrible crime that is being committed anywhere, to anyone, and at any time.