Arup works to combat Human Trafficking by driving awareness within the aviation industry

Arup’s principal value is ‘to shape a better world’ and the firm is committed to doing that in a number of ways from its world renowned design work to the range of humanitarian projects it is involved with.

As part of founder Ove Arup’s famous key speech, presented in Winchester in July 1970, he stated,

               “Humanitarianism implies a social conscience, a wish to do socially useful work, and to join hands with others fighting for the same values.”

It is now 50 years since Arup’s founder identified the importance of the humanitarian aspect of the firm’s work; work which continues to prioritise socially valuable outcomes in community-facing work.

To do this Arup has a Community Engagement programme which funds charitable projects and partnership working with NGOs. The scheme funded and delivered 195 projects in the year 2019-20, covering humanitarian projects in 42 countries. All projects are actively working to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs).

Arup has a long-standing strategic relationship with the aviation industry which is also actively seeking to contribute to UNSDGs so it is a natural progression for the firm to work on humanitarian projects together.

Human Trafficking in Aviation

In one of these Community Engagement funded projects, Arup is working to

               “drive awareness of Human Trafficking within the aviation industry for better recognition of potential victims on flights and earlier  reporting of suspicions, leading to a more effective, coordinated  response.”

The work, which is supported by US-based NGO Airline Ambassadors, aims to maximise the potential of the aviation industry in the fight against Human Trafficking.

With many victims being transported across national borders, aviation is a prime vector of transit. Traffickers have been known to use a range of transport methods but aviation is effective because it is difficult to track from authorities’ point of view. Due to its relative speed, interception is difficult. It offers a number of possibilities and routes, including the option to carry out dry runs or alter routes regularly to avoid detection.

It is very disorientating for the victim. An individual can be transported around the world and have little or no knowledge of their destination or actual whereabouts. They can arrive in a country and not even know where they are, let alone be able to speak the language.

However it is only in the past few years that aviation as an industry has even started to acknowledge this terrible crime and the part it can play in recognising and reporting victims and perpetrators.

“Cabin crew can play a vital part in recognising the signs of trafficking victims and reporting these,” explains Captain Martin Drake, Senior Security Advisor to the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA). “Cabin crew are trained to watch and read passengers. They have developed a sixth sense about which passengers are going to cause them trouble. They are ideally suited to spot behaviours and if they understand what these behaviours indicate, they are in the perfect position to report suspicions.”

“Likewise pilots are in the best position to relay these concerns to the authorities while the aircraft is still inflight. This is important because it is too easy for a trafficking victim to pass unnoticed through an airport once they have arrived at a country of destination. They will then just disappear into a life of exploitation and servitude.”

This project aims to raise awareness so that these suspicions, of a trafficking victim in-bound to a country, can be noticed and that flight intercepted at the gate, before it is too late and the individuals concerned allowed to disappear.

There has been a lot of work undertaken over the past three years to get the airline industry to recognise Human Trafficking. IATA has worked hard to get member states to agree industry-level action. It has also launched a Human Trafficking training programme for crew.

ICAO has issued Recommended Practice and is working on guidance specifically on reporting which should be published later this year. Border authorities and charities work with airports to raise awareness and increase the prospects of identification of victims passing through immigration with some success.

“The progress the industry has made in the past few years is extremely positive, especially in the UK,” explains Sarah-Jane Prew, Project Manager.

The aim of this project is to take this to the next stage and work with an airport to identify ‘best practise’ for such a reporting mechanism to occur.

“If we expect airlines to take the time and expense to train crew in Human Trafficking awareness, and expect them to have truly robust policies for reporting, we need to make sure that there are reciprocal robust procedures in place at the airports they are going to be reporting to.”

The idea is that airlines will use their natural resources and talents – their crew – to identify suspicions about human trafficking when it occurs on-board and relay this to the ground before arriving at an airport. Law enforcement can then meet this flight at the gate prior to disembarkation and prevent a potential victim and perpetrator from ‘disappearing’ through the airport. The system gives the authorities the very best chance to respond and removes opportunities for things to be missed in a busy airport.

Airlines recognise that for this to be successful the co-ordination on the ground has to be in place so every part of the journey is covered.

The Arup Human Trafficking project is working with Gatwick Airport and the aviation industry generally in the UK to identify and trial this best practise. The project also involves working closely with the law enforcement agencies involved at the airport to identify areas of responsibility and to recognise how the process can work best.

“A number of questions have been identified that would need answering to give the aviation industry confidence that the system would work,” explains Sarah-Jane.  

These include reporting processes from the air to the ground and whether these can be standardised. In the UK there is a move to use the Modern Slavery Helpline for airlines flying in to the country but is there a better solution for a co-ordinated international response, such as the tracing App being developed Airline Ambassadors?

There are also questions about jurisdiction and which authority ‘owns’ and leads on a call from an in-bound aircraft. There are several international conventions but these are sometimes poorly understood by law enforcement officers. While Border Force would, in the UK, respond primarily to such a call there are conflicting protocols from other law enforcement agencies and it is important to ensure that all such interests are met to fulfil the best outcome for each case.

While the identification and safety of the victims needs to be paramount in a case of trafficking there is also the necessity of trying to identify the perpetrators. When an aircraft is intercepted at the gate the chances of this are increased substantially over the scenario where individuals move through an airport which enables the traffickers to simply abandon their victims if approached.

Furthermore it needs to be understood exactly what is expected of crew in the reporting process. “We strive to make it clear to crew that they are only reporting their suspicions, nothing more,” explains Sarah-Jane. “I think a lot of airlines worry that there is an expectation that crews make a 100% positive identification of trafficking and the consequential concerns over what happens if they ‘get it wrong’. For this to work it must be stressed that crew are only reporting suspicions – it is up to the authorities to investigate further.”

However there are still questions around what information the crew will need to give to the authorities and how this will work. Will crew be delayed after a long flight, preventing them from getting home or holding up crew buses to lay-over hotels? Will this impact crew duty times or delay a turn-around? Will their identities be protected? Will they be required to appear in court or give statements at a later date and how will this work? Will this have a huge impact on their personal lives or their duty to the airline if they have reported suspicions in a location overseas?

Once these questions have been fully identified and answered there can then be a focus on developing awareness within the industry and focussing on the detail to make the training useful.

“There has been a lot of good training developed by many parties,” explains Sarah-Jane, “but what is often lacking is the ‘call for action’. Just raising awareness is not enough if people do not understand what they are expected to do with the information or know what processes are in place. When asking people to report suspicions of crime it is vital that people are both informed as to the process and what is expected of them and empowered to do so without fear of recrimination or ridicule.”

“Tackling this lack of co-ordination and in-putting some operational detail into the training is how we will best enable the aviation industry to play its part in tackling human trafficking and Arup is proud to be part of this.”