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Nuns shine spotlight on sex trafficking during Super Bowl:
Awareness, prevention efforts focus on 220 Indy hotels
Jan. 9, 2012
Eleven orders of Catholic women religious in Indiana and Michigan are collaborating with state and local officials to curb human trafficking around the Feb. 5 Super Bowl in Indianapolis. Incidents of human trafficking tend to spike with major sporting events such as the Super Bowl to meet the high demand for commercial sex.
The Coalition for Corporate Responsibility for Indiana and Michigan (CCRIM) is sponsoring the initiative. The Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Monroe, Mich. (IHM Sisters), are members of CCRIM.
"By its very nature, human trafficking is a hidden problem," said Nancy Seubert, who represents the IHM Sisters in the Super Bowl 2012 Anti-Trafficking Initiative. "These activities can go on without attracting the awareness of most of the people in the community. We are trying to raise awareness and help educate about the signs of human trafficking in order to stop it."
Often described as modern slavery, human trafficking occurs across borders and domestically. The United Nations estimates that 700,000 to 4 million women and children are trafficked around the world every year for purposes of forced prostitution, labor and other forms of exploitation. Trafficking is estimated to be a $15.5 billion annual business in the United States alone, according to the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking. The National Human Trafficking Resource Center reported that more than 11,800 calls were made to its hotline regarding sex trafficking in 2010, including calls from the state of Michigan.
CCRIM has been working with a task force comprising the Indiana Attorney General s Office, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and other nonprofit organizations to raise awareness about human trafficking and to take steps to prevent it. Since early January, CCRIM has been contacting the managers of 220 hotels within a 50-mile radius of Indianapolis to ask four questions:
- Have employees received training to recognize potential occurrences of human trafficking in their hotels?
- Is there a protocol in place for hotel employees to document and report possible incidences of trafficking?
- Are hotel employees/managers aware of the local groups working to end trafficking?
- Is the hotel willing to make anti-trafficking information available to guests?
Follow-up plans will be developed based on the response to the four questions. The goals of this initiative are to raise awareness, assure that hotel staff receives appropriate training and distribute educational materials to hotels willing to make them available in lobbies and guest rooms prior to the Super Bowl. Ultimately, CCRIM seeks to have area hotels sign on to the Code of Conduct developed by Ending Child Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT-USA) to deter child sexual exploitation.
"Human trafficking is a tragic violation of human rights that devastates its victims and tears at the fabric of our global society," said Sister Joan Mumaw, president of the IHM congregation. "Here in Michigan we need to improve legislation that protects victims and prosecutes traffickers. A report released in December by the Protected Innocence Initiative gives the state of Michigan a grade of 'F' for our human trafficking laws. The CCRIM Super Bowl 2012 Anti-Trafficking Initiative is just the beginning of a campaign to end this form of exploitation."
About CCRIM
The Coalition for Corporate Responsibility for Indiana and Michigan (CCRIM) is a faith-based investor group comprising 11 orders of Catholic women religious. CCRIM engages in socially responsible investing in collaboration with hundreds of other faith-based investor groups through the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility. CCRIM has directly invested in several hotel chains for the purposes of dialoging with the companies about their ethical responsibilities in the marketplace of profitability. CCRIM members are the Congregation of Saint Joseph; Grand Rapids Dominican Sisters; Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters, Huntington, Ind.; Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, Donaldson, Ind.; Servants of Jesus; Sisters of Mary Reparatrix; Sisters of Mercy; Sisters of Providence, Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind.; Sisters of Saint Francis, Oldenburg, Ind.; Sisters of the Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Ind.; and Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Monroe, Mich.
CCRIM is a member of the broader shareholder coalition, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a pioneer in shareholder advocacy including nearly 300 institutional investors and representing more than $100 billion in assets under management. ICCR members originally focused international attention on the perils of human trafficking at major sporting events during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and again at last year's Super Bowl in Texas, and is currently organizing a global coalition of investors around the upcoming London Olympics.
About ECPAT-USA/Code of Conduct
Ending Child Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT-USA) is a network of organizations and individuals working together to eliminate the commercial sexual exploitation of children around the world. ECPAT USA's Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism sets a standard for responsible business practices that effectively deters child sexual exploitation. Those who have signed the Code of Conduct in the hotel industry are Hilton Worldwide, Wyndham Worldwide, Millennium Hotel in St. Louis, Mo., and the Carlson Companies, which include chains such as Radisson Hotels and Country Inn and Suites. For more information, contact www.ecpatusa.org.
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