TAT Communications Director

WinCo Foods began rolling out TAT training in 2022. Later that year, after seeing a woman with a shaved head, clad only in a towel, standing along a remote stretch of mountainous highway, Joe Aguayo, a WinCo Foods driver, made a call alerting police.

His call resulted in the recovery of a trafficking victim. Law enforcement reported this to be the second Indigenous human trafficking victim found naked in this area, and they believe the remote location, coupled with limited access to cell service, has made the area a dumping ground for perpetrators. The investigation is ongoing. The trooper told Aguayo that he likely saved the woman’s life.

 In 2009, recognizing truckers as the eyes and ears of America’s highways, TAT began as a 501c3 organization with a mission to educate, equip, empower, and mobilize members of the trucking industry to fight human trafficking as part of their daily jobs. Its mission has grown in the past 15 years to include concentrated work with the bus and energy industries as well as with law enforcement and multiple government organizations and agencies that work with transportation. TAT has also scaled across borders into Canada and Mexico.

While human trafficking is rooted in greed, vulnerabilities, and the demand for cheap labour and commercial sex, racism, sexism, discrimination, poverty and gender-based violence all contribute to its perpetuation. Traffickers are adept at preying upon vulnerabilities; they seek out victims likely to be desperate and susceptible to manipulation, threats, and abuse while simultaneously being forgotten, ignored, or blamed for their circumstances by society at large. They rely on people not paying attention or knowing what to do if they see a trafficking situation, while victims often depend on those same people to notice something is wrong and act upon their suspicions. 

To disrupt trafficker presumptions, TAT provides free, niche-specific, anti-trafficking resources and training for the members of the industries, agencies, and organizations it serves to create a model of bystander intervention and build the largest mobile army of transportation professionals possible, dedicated to discovering and disrupting human trafficking networks. 

Within the trucking industry alone, TAT provides specific resources for OTR drivers, local drivers, in-home delivery professionals, and movers. It also works to see its training integrated into the fabric of operations in the companies, organizations, and agencies with which it partners. Resources include videos, wallet cards (English, Spanish, French-Canadian) with red flags to watch for, side-window decals, testing and certification, and toolkits. An app for both iPhones and Androids can also be downloaded at the links below:

• Android – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sherprog.walletcards.tat&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1
• Apple – https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/truckers-against-trafficking/id1208271857 

Through its Man-to-Man Campaign, TAT works on prevention efforts by educating members of male-dominated industries on how demand for commercial sex fuels the crime of sex trafficking. Demand-reduction resources include a video, wallet card, webinars, and samples of anti-trafficking-in-person policies with a demand-reduction focus that companies can use and adopt.

TAT’s mobile exhibit, the Freedom Drivers Project, travels throughout the United States and Canada, giving audiences a visual experience with survivor artifacts, the intersections between life, work, and trafficking and ways the trucking industry is helping lead the fight against human trafficking. TAT’s Coalition Builds grow public-private partnerships between industry, government, and law enforcement to close loopholes to traffickers. TAT’s free, on-demand law enforcement modules, with interactive activities and accompanying e-toolkit, provide law enforcement at every level with victim-centred, human trafficking training.

TAT materials may be viewed and accessed freely at https://tatnonprofit.org/training-library or by request to info@tatnonprofit.org. If interested in having a member of TAT staff present in person, contact info@tatnonprofit.org.