Asia's biggest budget airline trains crew to spot human traffickers

[webfact]

Asia's biggest budget airline trains crew to spot human traffickers

By Beh Lih Yi

 

File photo

 

KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - AirAsia, the biggest budget carrier in Asia, is training thousands of its staff to fight human trafficking, becoming one of the first airlines in the continent to crack down on the global crime.

 

Companies have come under increased pressure to tackle human trafficking, with an estimated 46 million people living in slavery and profits thought to be about $150 billion.

 

Planes are a key part of the illegal business, as criminal gangs transport thousands of children and vulnerable people by air each year for redeployment as sex workers, domestic helpers or in forced labor.

 

The United Nations has urged airlines to step in and look out for the tell-tale signs of trafficking.

 

Kuala Lumpur-based AirAsia, which flies millions of passengers annually to more than 110 destinations, said it was planning to train between 5,000 and 10,000 frontline staff, including cabin crew.

 

"We like to be able to have our staff know what to do if somebody comes up to them and says 'I need help'," said Yap Mun Ching, the executive director of AirAsia Foundation, the airline's philanthropic arm, which is driving the initiative.

 

"Sometimes (the victims) don't know they have been trafficked. They realize it only when they are on their way and they want to be able to get help. Most of the time they don't know who to turn to," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

 

AirAsia has teamed up with U.S.-based Airline Ambassadors International, a group that trains airline staff on trafficking, for the initiative, which kicked off this week at the airline's four main hubs - Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila.

 

All are hotspots for trafficking.

 

The group said signs of trafficking include young women or children who appeared to be under the control of others, show indications of mistreatment or who seem frightened, ashamed or nervous.

 

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime urged airline bosses at a summit in June to train flight crews to help combat human trafficking, the first time the aviation industry has held global discussion on the issue.

 

While some training of airline staff to spot and report potential trafficking is mandatory in the United States, it is not widespread across the industry.

 

So far, more than 70,000 U.S. airline staff have been trained under a program that began in 2013.

 

Asia has some of the worst offenders of human trafficking. Countries such as Thailand, Myanmar and Laos are listed by the United States on a trafficking watch list for not meeting the minimum standards needed to end the crime.

 

(Reporting by Beh Lih Yi @behlihyi, Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-08-17

[Scott]

Off-topic post removed.  

[Kerryd]

Hmmmm - barely a day after that other news story about the guy who was PO'd with Air Asia and thought that they were "racially profiling" his (black) wife and cousin. Took a whole 60 minutes to get his tickets issued ! He had to "rummage" through his pockets to come up with $800 to show the clerk ! (Seriously, he had to "rummage" his pockets.) Of course, that one hour delay "ruined" their whole holiday (all 2 nights of it) ! 

 

Considering how big of a problem human trafficking is, just in this part of the world, I'd be surprised if that didn't happen more often. Some countries have stringent visa rules to prevent people from flying in with their "wives" who end up spending their "honeymoons" working in brothels. They have those rules because they know it happens, all the time.
Just like a lot of girls take "modelling" jobs and find themselves in brothels instead. Nepal even banned their women from taking jobs outside of the country because huge numbers of them were being tricked into going taking jobs in India as waitresses and domestic help, only to end up being forced into the sex trade.
We see news articles fairly often on TV about Thai women being rescued from brothels in other countries (and not just Asian countries). I'm sure that airport/airline staff are given a list of certain things to look out for. The proverbial "red flags" that could indicate a problem. 

Maybe one of those "red flags" is a white guy travelling to Laos with 2 black women. I'm sure if I showed up at the airport for a flight to Canada and I had 2 (youngish) Thai women with me and said one was my wife, there would be some raised eyebrows (and some time spent checking visas, passports and such). It's too easy these days to get a fake marriage certificate and a cheap ring.

One thing I have learned over the years (of flying around the world a lot) was that a lot of people who have problems, are the cause of their own misery. Also, there is often more to the story that what we get to see. 


 

[hawker9000]

Oh this'll be good...

 

[Dobredin Ghusputin]

On 8/17/2017 at 2:49 AM, webfact said:

seem frightened, ashamed or nervous

 

So, basically every budget airline passenger then.