While we’ve covered it before on our site, I only recently read about the TraffickCam app allowing travelers to upload hotel room images to a database in an effort to combat human sex trafficking. This seemingly small step for travelers gives way for impactful results.

Only a few years old, the Exchange Initiative created TraffickCam in 2015 as a search engine for investigators and law enforcement to search through to compare vacant hotel room images uploaded by users with those found online of human-trafficking victims. As traffickers regularly post images of victims — often in hotel rooms — as online advertisements, photographs uploaded to TraffickCam can help investigators narrow down the search.

User-uploaded hotel images can be life-saving evidence to find and prosecute criminals. In order to use these photos, investigators must be able to determine where the pictures were taken. This simple step got me thinking: What other apps, services and basic tools could we, or the travel industry, use in the fight against human sex trafficking?

According to a recent Forbes article, airlines account for transporting nearly 60 percent of victims across international borders, which is why the new #EyesOpen system of training is so important. The program works twofold: educate flight attendants, airport staff, crew and gate attendants about all the ways to spot possible victims and assailants, and also increase public awareness of this crime, typically happening right in front of us.

— Angelique Platas, associate editor