At the close of Human Trafficking Awareness Month, Uber pledged its commitment to help fight domestic trafficking. Uber has partnered with the Polaris Project, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, ECPAT USA, Thorn and the McCain Institute to provide education and resources to all its driver-partners across the United States to be able to identify key signs, recognize victims and properly report potential cases of human trafficking.

Since 2015, Uber has been working with Thorn, providing its engineering expertise to support their technology work in defending children from online predatory sexual abuse. Uber is the first and only “on-demand” company to sign ECPAT USA’s Code, a set of voluntary business principles that travel, tour and transportation companies can implement to prevent child trafficking and sex tourism.

Uber’s new initiative will help detect and prevent a rather prevalent domestic issue. According to the president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 children alone, as young as 12 years old, are exploited in the United States’ sex trafficking industry annually. A 2014 report estimated the sex trafficking industry ranged from $39.9 million in Denver to $290 million in Atlanta. In fact, 1 in 7 endangered runaway children are likely child sex trafficking victims.

This policy, which will be implemented for all 750,000 active Uber driver-partners across the US and later expand to other countries, is a striking anti-trafficking effort, targeting exploitation at one of its routes; traffickers make use of broad transportation networks to move victims around, across the country or sometimes within city limits. Lawmakers have been working to fight domestic trafficking, with recent efforts narrowing in on the transportation industry to identify potential victims. The Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act (S. 1536) was signed into law on January 3, designating a human trafficking prevention coordinator within the Department of Transportation and expanding the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s education program to include human trafficking prevention. Another piece of legislation, the No Human Trafficking on Our Roads Act (S. 1532), passed on January 8, imposing a lifetime disqualification of those who use a commercial vehicle to commit trafficking offenses from operating commercial vehicles.

Uber driver-partners thus play a vital role in identifying and preventing human trafficking within our communities. In December 2016, an Uber driver-partner identified suspicious behavior during a trip, promptly reported it to the police and ultimately helped a 16 year old girl escape a human trafficking operation in Sacramento. He was rightfully recognized a hero with a NCMEC Hope Award the following year.

This move to help identify human trafficking on a more individualized driver/rider basis is particularly important in combating the widespread issue plaguing our communities, as a recent sting operation carried out by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as a part of “Operation Reclaim and Rebuild” (a program goal to help trafficking victims restore their health and lives) was able to rescue 56 trafficking survivors, identifying and arresting 510 suspects on charges ranging from trafficking to “internet crimes against children.”

Former police officer and current head of Uber’s Global Safety Communications, Tracey Breeden, stated, “we have a lot of eyes and ears on the road, and if we can help just one child, it's worth it." A collective - from individual consciousness and personal initiative, government efforts and business cooperation - can together disrupt and finally end human trafficking.