Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving a person by means of threat, force, coercion or deception to achieve control over another person for the purpose of exploitation. Although self-proclaimed to be the ‘business of freedom’, the convenience and inter-connectivity of the aviation industry is being misused by traffickers to steal liberty from others. With an estimated 40.3 million victims of modern slavery in the world today, the aviation industry is under increasing pressure to scrutinise its mode of operation in order to identify critical intervention points where they can help and actively address this violation against human rights. In addition to ethical supply chain management, in recent years there has been an urgent call for airlines to train front-line staff to profile passengers and report potential trafficking cases, thus intercepting the transportation of victims before they disappear into a life of exploitation. Several factors are now at play that have made it increasingly unattractive for the aviation industry to adopt the ‘do nothing’ approach towards human
trafficking. These include the call to act as described above; strengthening anti-trafficking legislation; the proven links between trafficking and terrorism; and growing consumer and investor awareness

Access full report here.