Greg's Corner

Hotels are at the front line of human trafficking

When we think of hotels and human trafficking we think mostly of the seedy roadside motel that no one would normally visit under any circumstance. While those places do exist, human trafficking also takes place at the same hotels we use for business and vacations. Think about that for a moment. There may be a victim of human trafficking at the same hotel that you may be staying at with your family.

The problem has become so prevalent that many police departments and anti-human trafficking groups have taken it upon themselves to educate hotel workers about the problem. For example, the city of Omaha, Nebraska, and The Creighton Human Trafficking Initiative have educated workers at over 100 hotels in Omaha on how to recognize if someone is being trafficked. Often victims are either forced to work out of these hotels are or held captive there being unable to leave due to threats of physical violence.

The problem is so prevalent nowadays thanks to sites like Backpage that this is only one of many initiatives being held across the country. Human trafficking is one of the most profitable crimes in the world since a person can be sold over and over again unlike something like drugs which require a constant manufacturing process. If more people were aware that human trafficking is happening everywhere and not just in the places we think it’s happening, a lot more could be done to put a stop to it.