Today is the first day of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA) five-day Human Trafficking Awareness Initiative in Mexico. This annual five-day human trafficking awareness, outreach, identification and prevention campaign aims to educate commercial motor vehicle drivers, motor carriers, law enforcement officers and the general public about the crime of human trafficking, the signs to look for and what to do if you suspect someone is being trafficked.
This week, Mexican law enforcement jurisdictions, motor carrier companies and transportation safety organizations will track their human trafficking awareness and outreach activities and submit that data to the Alliance. CVSA will gather and analyze the data and report the results this summer.
Mexico’s Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT) has prioritized participating in this annual educational and outreach effort. Its goals are to raise awareness, provide training, and disseminate information about human trafficking identification and prevention to commercial motor vehicle drivers, administrative staff, public servants and the public.
In the months leading up to the Human Trafficking Awareness Initiative, CVSA educated its membership and the public on human trafficking through webinars, social media, articles, radio appearances and online resources.
According to the United Nations, human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception with the aim of exploiting them for profit. Men, women and children of all ages and from all backgrounds can become victims of this crime, which occurs in every region of the world.
If you or someone you know is a victim of human trafficking in Mexico, call Mexico’s national hotline at 800-5533-000. In the U.S., call 888-373-7888. Hotlines are confidential, free of charge and open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
CVSA is comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal commercial motor vehicle safety officials and industry representatives throughout North America. Canada and the U.S. also participated in CVSA’s Human Trafficking Awareness Initiative. The U.S. campaign was in January; Canada’s was in February.
The Human Trafficking Awareness Initiative is part of CVSA’s Human Trafficking Prevention Program. The program seeks to reduce human trafficking throughout North America through coordinated enforcement and investigative and educational awareness measures within the commercial motor vehicle industry.