How Truckers, Hotel Workers Can Fight Sex Trafficking

For most of his 20-year trucking career, Antoine Sadler figured if he saw something untoward at the truck stops, travel plazas and motels along his cross-country routes, the police would handle it.

But three years ago, Sadler, who drives for Wal-Mart, took a special training course for truckers, which taught him how to identify potential victims of sex trafficking: SUVs full of young girls in revealing clothing or someone at a rest stop clearly under the control of someone else. He realized that as a trucker, he was in a position to intervene by asking someone clearly in distress if they needed help or by calling the police.

“As drivers, we should be the front line,” said Sadler, 43, who lives in North Carolina and now educates other truckers about sex trafficking. “That’s the only way this epidemic will stop: if everyone’s watching.”

Some states are starting to agree with Sadler’s conclusion. Ohio in July began requiring that commercial truck drivers be trained in how to spot telltale signs of sex trafficking and how to report it. Last week, the Arkansas House approved a bill that would require training for truckers. Kansas, Kentucky and Texas also are considering similar bills — though the Kentucky bill goes a step further and would make it a crime for licensed truckers to use their rigs to facilitate trafficking, engage in prostitution or transport minors.

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