Friday, July 12, 2024 The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) Interim President & CEO Kevin Carey released the following statement today regarding the introduction of the Human Trafficking Awareness Training Recognition Act, which mandates the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish a certification program for businesses that train their employees to recognize and respond to suspected human trafficking. “The Human Trafficking Awareness Training Recognition Act would complement our industry’s anti-trafficking efforts by providing important third-party validation for hotels’ training and prevention initiatives,” said AHLA Interim President & CEO Kevin Carey. “We are grateful to Reps.
Valadao and Carter for introducing this important bill and look forward to helping them pass it into law.” Background The Human Trafficking Awareness Training Recognition Act, introduced this week by Reps. David Valadao (R-Calif.
) and Troy Carter (D-La.), enables DHS to certify businesses that have trained their employees to combat human trafficking. These businesses can publicly display these annual certifications, which would be issued by the Blue Campaign at the DHS Center for Countering Human Trafficking, an initiative aimed at raising public awareness of human trafficking.
AHLA, its members, and the AHLA Foundation are dedicated to preventing trafficking, with hotels being at the forefront of these efforts for many years. Since 2019, the No Room for Trafficking (.
