At this year’s Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Convention in Orlando, Fla., the GBTA Foundation announced a new partnership with ECPAT, the leading organization fighting sex tourism and child exploitation. The announcement received strong support from attendees.
“The GBTA Foundation and ECPAT stand together against the trafficking and exploitation of children,” said Daphne Bryant, executive director of the GBTA Foundation. “Through this partnership, the GBTA Foundation will work with ECPAT to educate the travel industry on how to recognize the warning signs of sex tourism and child exploitation. By working together, our industry can play a meaningful role in ending child exploitation.”
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, roughly 100,000 children in the United States were sexually abused or exploited last year, and millions more are victimized worldwide. Transportation and lodging services can be misused by traffickers: commercial airlines and buses may be used to move victims, and hotel rooms can become sites of abuse.
To mobilize the travel sector against child exploitation, the GBTA is encouraging business travel organizations to adopt and implement ECPAT’s Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism. This voluntary, industry-led set of guidelines is focused specifically on preventing the sexual exploitation and trafficking of children within travel and tourism.
“I welcome GBTA’s commitment to fully support ECPAT’s mission to help children around the world,” said Michelle Guelbart, director of private sector engagement at ECPAT. “With the business travel industry’s involvement, we can make a real difference.”