Trucking Group Is Honored for Fighting Sex Trafficking
This story appears in the April 27 print edition of Transport Topics.
WASHINGTON — Truckers Against Trafficking has been honored by federal lawmakers for its role in helping rescue mostly young women from human trafficking networks in which they often are sexually exploited.
The award was presented by the Congressional Victims’ Rights Caucus at a ceremony on Capitol Hill.
“Those 18-wheelers you see all across the country every day, they are involved in helping stop the scourge of trafficking,” Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), co-founder of the bipartisan House caucus, said April 22.
“This work is incredibly important as trafficking victims are moved around the country and they are, unfortunately, in and out of a truck stop,” Poe said. “The truckers use that as an advantage to be able to call law enforcement to help stop this scourge.”
The truckers’ award was one of several presented by the caucus at its annual ceremony honoring supporters of victims’ rights.
Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), who founded the caucus with Poe, called the event a celebration of the “champions” who every day try to make a difference for those who have been affected or may be a victim of crime.
Trucker Bill Brady of New York Mills, Minnesota, an owner-operator who hauls for Lodestar Transport, accepted the award for Truckers Against Trafficking.
“I strongly feel the trucking industry has the opportunity to play a pivotal role in the fight against human trafficking in the sense that we’re not only the eyes and ears of the highways . . . but we’ve got the means of communicating with one another from out there on the road,” Brady said in accepting the caucus’ Suzanne McDaniel Memorial Award for Public Awareness.
The award is named for a late Texas prosecutor who became a leader in raising awareness about victims’ rights, the caucus said.
Truckers Against Trafficking, Poe said, was being honored for making the trucking community more aware of sex trafficking and suspicious activity.
The group recently helped crack a sex trafficking ring in Virginia, where a trucker saw a frightened young face in the window of a recreational vehicle where men were entering and leaving, Poe said.
“He had a feeling the girl was in trouble, so, he called police,” Poe said. “He was right; she was a trafficking victim.”
Truckers Against Trafficking was founded in 2009 as part of a Christian ministry group, but it became a nonprofit organization in 2011.
The group, headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, works to educate drivers and the public about people caught up in domestic sex trafficking who are not “out there because they want to be there,” Brady said. “They are being forced.”
Sex traffickers work more than truck stops, he told Transport Topics. “It’s social media; it’s hotels, motels; it’s out there.”
The trucker group maintains a 24-hour hotline to report suspicious activity (888-3737-888). Operators then relay the report to local law enforcement so the driver avoids a physical confrontation at the scene, Brady said.
