WASHINGTON (RNS)—Faith groups are using their collective influence and financial wherewithal to press the travel and hospitality industry to take greater steps to protect children from sex trafficking.
Increasing numbers of church groups and other religious bodies say it's not only a moral imperative to guard against sex trafficking, but also makes good business sense for hotels, airlines and cruise companies.
Last November, a Massachusetts investment firm, Boston Common Asset Management, used a shareholder resolution to convince the Marriott hotel empire to reshape its human rights policy with a new “protection of the rights of children” clause to raise awareness of the issue.
The Boston company is a member of the New York-based Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and its success with Marriott prompted greater interest in what investors—in this case, churches—can do to end child sex tourism.
“Faith groups are saying that this is just so abhorrent we need to address it,” said David Shilling, director of global corporate accountability for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. “The motivation is to try to redress the issue of (using) people for various commodities.”
According to the U.S. State Department, more than 1 million children worldwide are caught up in a global network of sex trafficking in which people travel to engage in paid sex acts with children.
The Interfaith Center reviewed which faith groups hold stock in specific corporations. The Presbyterian Church (USA), for example, “stepped up” to engage Hilton Hotels, where it holds investments, on the issue, Schilling said.
Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, who monitors the Presbyterians' $10 billion investment portfolio for the church's Mission Responsibility through Investment Committee, said hotels can have an influence on the sex tourism industry.
“It would be one major piece in the chain of helping to raise awareness,” he said. “Having them on board creates a better climate to combat this sort of activity.”
Faith groups have been working with the New York-based ECPAT-USA, a nonprofit organization working to end child prostitution, child pornography and sex trafficking. It wants hotels to adopt its code, which was developed in conjunction with the travel industry and the World Tourism Organization. Signatories of that code agree to develop policies and implement training to detect and avoid involvement in child sex tourism. They also are required to report on their progress annually to shareholders.
Carol Smolenski, executive director of ECPAT-USA, said hotels play a critical role in fighting child exploitation because hotels often are the places where it occurs. This puts them “in a position to take a position” and to “address travelers,” she said.
But, Smolenski said, most companies have been unwilling to completely sign on to the requirements of the code.
“They don't sign because (they believe) it makes them more vulnerable to a lawsuit if something happens on their premises,” she said. “Signing it makes them more responsible.”
She argued, however, that signing the code actually would benefit a company in that sort of situation. “If something happened and you had signed, you'd be in a better place,” she said, because it would help a hotel appear to be a “good- guy company” that is trying to address the problem.