ITE Journal - June 2021 - 43

report signs of human trafficking without facing retaliation if they
are incorrect. Proper training should offer policies and procedures
that would minimize the employee's exposure to the situation and
avoid putting the employee or potential victim in danger.
There are many options for beginning to develop and deliver
agency-wide human trafficking training, and many states are
making progress. Texas, for example, has passed laws requiring
state DOT employees to be trained in awareness and indicators of
human trafficking.
Agencies like the Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Iowa DOTs have
already developed training modules for their employees. Effective
training engages and incorporates a blend of subject matter experts,
videos, and presentations that include the following topics:
ƒ	 A clear definition of human trafficking
ƒ	 A list of the signs of human trafficking complemented with
specific regional examples
ƒ	 Appropriate actions to take once suspicious activity is
observed
ƒ	 Actions NOT to take when suspicious activity is observed
ƒ	 Routine updates
Partner/Assist Regionally. The DOT district offices may
collaborate with local and tribal agencies on training and sharing
of information. A DOT district office also can participate in
regional anti-trafficking coalitions where possible. Several DOTs
are partnering with groups and initiatives such as Truckers
Against Trafficking, ECPAT USA, Businesses Ending Slavery and
Trafficking, the Association of General Contractors, universities,
and other state DOTs.
In addition to the training noted earlier, Iowa DOT is currently
working with Truckers Against Trafficking and local victims
services along with its state Attorney General and Motor Vehicle
Enforcement offices to collaborate on anti-trafficking activities.
These partnerships develop and grow because effective
disruption to human trafficking happens at the regional and
local level. Many communities such as, Waco, TX, USA, have
created coalitions to bring together an array of organizations
and multidisciplinary teams, such as The Heart of Texas Human
Trafficking Coalition (www.hothtc.org). USDOT lists the
transportation entities in each state that have pledged to combat
human trafficking and provides a place where transportation
agency stakeholders can learn entry points for collaboration, at
www.transportation.gov/TLAHT.
Collect Frontline Empirical Data. In addition to awareness,
training, and partnering, organizations like the Transportation
Research Board of the National Academies of Science, Engineering
and Medicine (TRB) and the Institute of Transportation Engineers
(ITE) are realizing the importance of collecting and synthesizing
good data. For example, the USDOT awarded the first-ever USDOT
Combating Human Trafficking in Transportation Impact Award

The staggering number of movements across the globe, whether
within a country, across borders, or online, make interdiction of
trafficking nearly impossible without a data-driven predictive
analysis to guide how governments allocate resources and energy
in the space. That analysis requires comprehensive frontline
data collected from across the transportation industry, as well as
from sex and labor trafficking survivors and direct victim service
providers; data that until now, have not been available to the
counter-trafficking community.
United Against Slavery (UAS) became the first-ever
recipient of the U.S. Department of Transportation Combating
Human Trafficking in Transportation Impact Award. Under that
award, UAS will launch the 2021 National Outreach Survey for
Transportation (NOST) that comprises more than 70 contributors
working diligently to ensure measurable outcomes from
the study. Every mode of transportation can leverage data
collection and predictive analysis to inform awareness and
training programs, focus legislation, improve enforcement and
preventative actions, and improve survivor resource allocation to
drive more effective progress over the next decade.
The survey will launch on July 5, 2021, concluding on
September 3. Following data analysis and peer review, we will
publish the final reports the week of April 18, 2022 to coincide
with National Victim's Crime Week in the United States. UAS
encourages the participation from ITE members to complete the
survey during the 60-day open window. Please visit https://www.
unitedagainstslavery.org/2021nost-ite to take the 2021 NOST.

to United Against Slavery to conduct the 2021 National Outreach
Survey for Transportation focused on the survey respondent's
experiences, knowledge, perceived challenges, and recommendations of counter-trafficking efforts in their frontline work across
industry (See sidebar for more detail).9 This follows on a Congressionally mandated study conducted by the USDOT which urged
data collection by the transportation sector to help combat human
trafficking. TRB is running multiple studies on human trafficking
in the transportation sector. While the USDOT study is in its early
stages, NCHRP 20-121, State DOT Contributions to the Study,
Investigation, and Interdiction of Human Trafficking has reviewed
the topic in depth to facilitate state DOT programming, would
collate research results using the themes used in the USDOT study
including leadership and funding, partnerships, social responsibility, employee reporting protocol, education and training, and public
awareness and outreach, among others.
State DOTs will need to define their role in partnerships and the
scope of their involvement. While not yet in final form, early data
have suggested that state DOTs could support law enforcement by
w w w .i t e.or g

J u ne 2021

43


https://www.unitedagainstslavery.org/2021nost-ite https://www.unitedagainstslavery.org/2021nost-ite http://www.hothtc.org http://www.transportation.gov/TLAHT http://www.ite.org

ITE Journal - June 2021

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