Airport Experience® News - Leadership & Culture Issue 2023

ONE-ON-ONE

While many airports do participate in [anti-human trafficking] efforts, not all do. A big goal of ours...is to reach out to the community to make sure they know we exist and that we have free resources.

KRAL: Are most commercial airports actively engaged in fighting human trafficking? What does that look like? BYNUM: Many airports are involved in anti-human trafficking efforts. Airports participate in the movement by training their staff on the indicators and warning signs of trafficking and helping us raise public awareness in terminals. If you’ve been through airports recently, I’m sure you’ve heard the PSAs or seen the materials. Airports are also partnering with local victim servicing non-governmental organizations. While many airports do participate in these efforts, not all do, so that’s a big goal of ours through BLI, to reach out to the community to make sure they know that we exist and that we have free resources. I do want to note that airlines are federally required by law to train staff on human trafficking but there’s no similar law for airports, though the Human Trafficking Prevention Act of 2022 does require all airports and airplanes have human trafficking awareness cited in all restrooms. KRAL: What are the main things airports can do to further the cause? BYNUM: Airports can do the training - that’s one of the things we provide at no cost. They can also help raise awareness among the public and be survivor informed with imagery. That last point is super important here at DHS and is part of our victim-centered approach to make sure that organizations and the government aren’t re-victimizing victims. We want to make sure that we’re bringing lived-experience experts to the table when we’re creating posters or any type

of awareness materials that go out to the public. And it also means that we want to represent a diverse population in anti human trafficking awareness materials, because human trafficking can happen to anybody and it looks different in different places across the world and throughout the United States. KRAL: Are there efforts underway to tap frontline workers to proactively look for warning signs of human trafficking? BYNUM: As the scope of human trafficking has changed, we’ve seen more frontline workers being included in our training. And here at BLI, we’ve updated our modules to include frontline

staff members who work on the airplanes and at the airport. In this last fiscal year, we trained over 260,000 staff members and many of the airports that take that BLI training make it mandatory for all of their badge holders, including airport tenants, which is really great. KRAL: What do you hope for the future of the Blue Lightning Initiative? BYNUM: To date, BLI has 136 partners, which is really, really great for us, as we’ve seen that number rise every year. That number includes 60 airport partners, including the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE). And I mention them because they make their training available to all of their members. What we want to do as we continue to grow is partner with more associations because they have that wide reach—if we’re partnering with an organization like AAAE, then we get access to all of their partners. And the ultimate goal is to get all airports on board. Our senior engagement manager is doing outreach throughout the year, not just in January for National Human Trafficking Prevention Month—he was actually just in Texas sitting on a panel for Southwest Airlines . We want to continue to do targeted engagements all across the U.S. and we recently got approval from DHS headquarters to start partnering with international organizations. So far we’ve signed with two international partners - that’s the future of our work because we know that human trafficking is happening around the world, and we want to make sure our free resources are available to as many organizations as possible.

As the scope of human trafficking has changed, we’ve seen more frontline workers being included in our training. And here at BLI, we’ve updated our modules to include frontline staff members who work on the airplanes and at the airport.

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AX NEWS LEADERSHIP ISSUE 2023