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Hospitality employees to be trained to spot human trafficking

Staff Report //November 19, 2019//

Hospitality employees to be trained to spot human trafficking

Staff Report //November 19, 2019//

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The South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association is working with state Attorney General Alan Wilson to fight human trafficking.

Members of the association will be working with the attorney general’s office to train hospitality employees to identify potential cases of human trafficking. The association and Wilson signed a memorandum of understanding to enhance their partnership.

The attorney general’s office’s Human Trafficking Task Force has been working statewide to increase community awareness, promote collaborations between law enforcement and social services to help victims and prosecute cases, and develop legislation that ramps up prosecution and provides services to victims. Several regional task forces have been established.

As human traffickers and their victims are often transient, they patronize hotels and restaurants, the attorney general’s office said. Victims being trafficked for sex may be prostituted out of hotel rooms.

The S.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association represents more than 2,200 members and industry-related service providers.

“Our partnership with the restaurant and lodging association is an important step toward ensuring the hospitality industry is well-trained to identify and safely respond to potential incidents of sex or labor trafficking,” Wilson said.

Wilson’s office has similar memoranda of understanding with the S.C. Hospital Association and S.C. Trucking Association.

In 2017, the most recent statistics available in the task force’s 2018 annual report, 198 human trafficking cases were recorded in South Carolina.  

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