Trafficking Initiative

St. Louis University: Saint Louis University Computer Scientist Uses Image Recognition to Combat Human Trafficking

Travelers Encouraged to Share Hotel Images to Help Stop Traffickers and Rescue Victims ST. LOUIS – Human traffickers regularly post photographs of their victims posed in hotel rooms for online ads. As COVID-19 restrictions and quarantines continue to lift around the world, one Saint Louis University researcher reminds travelers that by simply downloading an app, they could play a role…

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No Vacancy: How the meeting and events industry can help stop child sex trafficking

No Vacancy: How the meeting and events industry can help stop child sex trafficking

Child sex trafficking is a crime that happens across the United States, often in hotel rooms. Something that you might consider is that other businesses, parallel to the hospitality industry, can help protect children—the meeting and events industry is one of them because the meetings industry works with hotels and with companies that book hotels for their employees. In September, ECPAT-USA…

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Q & A with Kimberly Ritter, fighting human trafficking with a smartphone app

Q & A with Kimberly Ritter, fighting human trafficking with a smartphone app Kimberly Ritter is the senior account manager specializing in large event planning at Nix Conference & Meeting Management in St. Louis. She also spearheads the company’s corporate social responsibility trafficking initiative. Ritter is the director for development for Exchange Initiative, a social action organization that Nix formed…

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Travelers fight sex trafficking with TraffickCam during National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month (January)

ST. LOUIS, MO – The social action organization Exchange Initiative is encouraging travelers to help fight sex trafficking during January, National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, by uploading hotel room photos to the free TraffickCam mobile app. Today, January 11 is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Photos uploaded with the TraffickCam app are anonymously added to a national database…

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$100,000 matching gift supports TraffickCam app to fight human sex trafficking

ST. LOUIS, MO – The Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, a community of Catholic women religious and associates, has donated a $100,000 matching gift to support the ongoing development of TraffickCam, the free anti-trafficking smartphone app that has taken social media, the traveling public and the tech world by storm. Donations will support the ongoing development of the…

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Travelers use TraffickCam app to fight sex trafficking by uploading hotel room photos to national database

ST. LOUIS, MO – Travelers can help in the fight against sex trafficking by using a new, free mobile app called TraffickCam to anonymously photograph hotel rooms and upload data to a national database used by law enforcement and investigators to locate victims and their pimps. TraffickCam was developed by the social action organization Exchange Initiative and researchers at Washington…

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