CBA Record

YLS Special Issue l PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN

police. The trafficker was found guilty of human trafficking and distribution of drugs to a minor in a Houston County court and sentenced to 50 years in prison. In 2009 a young child was raped and killed at a Comfort Inn in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and the holding company had to be aware of the fairly large number of recent trafficking arrests that occurred within their hotels across the country, the complaint alleges. It also claims that the Alabama Quality Inn should have known that trafficking was occurring when K.R.’s trafficker stayed at the hotel for 40 nights a year, paid using cash, reserved two rooms next to each other for an extended stay, and checked in with a young girl who was visibly under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol who was not allowed to leave the hotel. Choice Hotels International, the complaint asserts, has benefited from the trafficking, and has failed to take reason- able efforts to stop the crime; K.R. seeks damages for this negligence. The complaint maintains that as the vast majority of sex trafficking occurs in hotels and motels, these should be the “first line of defense against illegal prostitution and sex traf- ficking of children.” Hotels do have warn- ing signs of trafficking: payment by cash only, older men or women with a younger female, reservation of two rooms close to each other, a lack of luggage, refusal of cleaning services, regular requests for towels, and numerous men coming and going from the rooms or congregating at the door (George, E. R. & Smith, S. R., In good company: How corporate social responsibility can protect rights and aid efforts to end child sex trafficking and modern slavery, 46 Int’l L. & Polit. 55-113 (2013)). Mandatory employee training programs and protocols for employees on trafficking are an urgent need. Again, lawyers, through suits like these, have been in the forefront of efforts to hold those neg- ligently supporting trafficking accountable. Hotel rooms are often used in Cook County for prostitution assignations that may involve trafficked individuals. In reviewing 56 stings the Cook County

Claire McCaskill and Rob Portman, and the actions of several state attorney generals and Sheriff Dart, we may be reaching the beginning of the end of Internet adver- tisements for sold sex, which would be a large step against trafficking for sexual exploitation. We now can probably expect more lawsuits against Backpage by traf- ficking survivors, like the one discussed below. Hotels Early in 2017, attorneys filed a lawsuit on behalf of a formerly trafficked teen in the Circuit Court of Houston County, Ala- bama against Choice Hotels International and Backpage ( K.R. v. Backpage.com, No. 38-CV-2017,-900041.00 (Cir. Ct. of Houston Cnty., Ala. Jan. 25, 2017)), com- plaint available at http://bit.ly/2neKQH1. Choice Hotel holdings include Quality Inn, Comfort Inn, Econo Lodge, Sleep Inn, and Rodeway Inn. The victim, K.R., a runaway fromMississippi, was kidnapped by the trafficker, who placed ads for her sexual services on Backpage. K.R. ulti- mately escaped from the hotel and walked 8 miles before finding someone who alerted

Backpage announced it had closed down the adult section of the site (J. Gerstein, Under Senate Pressure, Backpage Shutters Adult Section, Politico.com (Jan. 9, 2017), available at http://politi.co/2igZ3nx), but experts allege the ads have merely moved to other parts of Backpage (D. Hawkins, Backpage.com Blocks Prostitution Ads in U.S. Under Pressure for Sex Trafficking: Statement (2017), available at http://bit. ly/2mj31w6.). In 2015 Congress amended federal anti-trafficking law with the SAVE Act, which makes knowingly running advertise- ments that cause prostitution by force or coercion or with those underage criminal (SAVE Act, 2015, 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)). Although experts believe that enforce- ment of this provision would be difficult because of the “knowing” requirement, the documents secured from Backpage demonstrate that the Internet provider was put on notice of potential trafficking and did nothing but hide the evidence in the edited ads. Now Backpage finds itself in the crosshairs, facing criminal charges that may deter other Internet providers as well. Thanks to the persistence of Senators

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