The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has announced the winners for its yearly awards to transportation organizations fighting back against human trafficking.
USDOT’s “Combating Human Trafficking in Transportation Impact Awards” are handed out to groups that “advance innovative and shareable solutions” in the transportation sector, and come with a $50,000 prize for each winner. Taking first place for the 2024 iteration of the award was TAT (formerly known as Truckers Against Trafficking), for the nonprofit’s “Youth on Transportation Initiative,” a community training program focused on bringing awareness to kids and families. TAT also trains truck drivers on how to spot the signs of human trafficking, and what to do when they come across it on the job.
Second place went to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority for “Project S.O.A.R,” a proposal to develop a multimodal human trafficking awareness campaign for the two major airports in the Washington, D.C. area, while also providing resources to survivors. Third place went to the Oklahoma Transit Association, for its “Rolling Oklahoma Classroom” program, which includes a mobile human trafficking awareness vehicle that travels to eight surrounding states to provide educational resources to rural and tribal communities.
According to 2021’s National Outreach Survey on Transportation, 81% of 107 human trafficking survivors used some mode of transportation during their recruitment, along with 76% over the course of their exploitation. Another 52% said that transportation facilitated their escape from a trafficking situation.
