Human Trafficking Prevention
Originally published in American Airlines 2021 ESG Report
American has become an industry leader in combating human trafficking and child exploitation. We have mandatory human trafficking awareness training for our frontline, customer-facing team members — including flight attendants, pilots and airport customer service representatives — as well as for team members with international purchasing responsibilities. This training is required for new hires and as part of our recurrent training programs. We know that vigilance is key in fighting the scourge of human trafficking, and we stand ready to help.
American’s collaboration with government agencies, industry partners and nongovernmental organizations is a key part of our human trafficking prevention program. We work with a range of partners, including the following:
- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Blue Campaign, a national public awareness effort that aims to educate the public, law enforcement and industry partners to recognize the indicators of human trafficking.
- New Friends New Life (NFNL), a Dallas-based organization working to restore and empower formerly trafficked teenage girls and sexually exploited women and their children. According to NFNL research, Texas ranks second in the country for trafficking prevalence, with more than 300,000 victims annually statewide. By providing access to education, job training, financial assistance and mental health support, NFNL helps women and their children overcome backgrounds of abuse, addiction, poverty and limited opportunities. NFNL has held training sessions for more than 150 American team members at our headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, and another 50 at Miami International Airport. The organization honored American in October 2021 as a recipient of its ProtectHER award, which recognized our commitment — in partnership with Jones Day — to helping remove the barrier of a criminal record obtained as a direct result of being trafficked and exploited.
- Texas Businesses Against Trafficking, a public–private awareness and prevention initiative led by the Texas Secretary of State.
Our Government Contracts Compliance team ensures the company’s compliance with domestic and international modern slavery and human trafficking laws. In July 2021, we published the annual update of American’s Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement to comply with the U.K. Modern Slavery Act of 2015 and Australia’s Modern Slavery Act of 2018. American is also a signatory to ECPAT-USA’s Tourism Child-Protection Code of Conduct, a voluntary set of business principles to prevent child sex tourism and the trafficking of children.
