Human-trafficking is a hideous practice that we, at CWT, battle every day by organizing different actions throughout the year to embed it firmly in our Responsible Business strategy.
As covered in a previous blog post, there are different ways companies and organizations can fight it, two of them are helping those already in the battlefield and increasing employees’ awareness.
This is why, on the occasion of the 12th EU Anti-trafficking day that took place on the 18th of October, CWT’s Legal and Responsible Business teams partnered with the Association of Corporate Counsel Europe to organize a forum in CWT’s Paris office to talk about what CWT and other organizations are doing in this field:
- ECPAT, a network of local civil society organizations and coalitions fighting to end the sexual exploitation of children around the world, was represented by Ludivine Pivon, Project Manager at ECPAT France: “We conduct awareness-raising actions aimed at the general public, training activities for key stakeholders fighting against child sexual abuse, and advocacy initiatives among national, European and international authorities. Recently, we launched the ECPAT France app (in French) specifically dedicated to informing a wide range of professionals about the sexual exploitation of children.”
- White & Case, a global international law firm that has been doing important pro bono work on subjects such as human trafficking, domestic violence and torture, was represented by Anne Sophie Oberreiner, Staff Attorney, who spoke about the firm’s recent actions: “White & Case team researched, drafted and delivered a Global Study of Laws Relating to Sexual Exploitation of Children Online. We created a global database on the online sexual exploitation of children in more than 90 countries for our pro bono client ECPAT.”
- From CWT, Françoise Grumberg, Vice President Global Responsible Business, presented the recently created Anti-human trafficking task force, and the work which has been done to fight against human trafficking through reinforced policies, more awareness, and education and closer collaboration with stakeholders: “CWT is in a unique position to make a difference by raising awareness among our sphere of influence, such as employees, travelers, suppliers and clients.”
I shared with the audience the call for action presented at the International Summit on Child Protection in Travel and Tourism, in Bogota, Colombia in June 2018, and invited the audience to build upon it to ensure the protection of children in the travel and tourism industry and end impunity. The participants shared their ideas on how to engage in the fight through employee and traveler training, education for children in schools, awareness-raising through social media, and the creation of an international repository for data on this topic.
