FightingModern-Day Slavery from the Road


Truckers Against Trafficking brings the power of the trucking industry against human trafficking


BY JENNIFER BARNETT REED Guest Writer


Kevin Kimmel could have just minded his


own business that cold January morning. He could have looked the other way, told himself the men knocking on the door of the RV parked two slots down from him behind the truck stop was none of his business. He could have explained away the scared face of the girl who peeked briefly out from behind the RV’s closed curtains before someone jerked them closed again. He could have closed just his own truck cab’s curtains and gotten some sleep after a long night of driving and deliveries. Instead, he listened to his gut and


made a phone call. A few minutes later, he watched as police knocked on the door of the RV parked two slots down from him at the rural Virginia truck stop where he’d stopped to rest. He watched as the scared, emaciated young woman came out and talked to the officers. Watched as they called an ambulance to take her away and as they handcuffed the other two people in the RV, a man and woman. Kimmel, then a driver for Con-Way


Freight, learned later that the young woman was a victim of human trafficking. Te couple police arrested had kidnapped her in another state, and for two weeks they had tortured her, starved her, raped her, and sold her for sex as they traveled from truck stop to truck stop. Kimmel’s phone call most likely saved her


national hotline he could have called to make an anonymous report. He might not even have thought to use the phrase “human trafficking” to describe what he was seeing. But he did exactly what Truckers Against Trafficking’s founders hope to empower all truck drivers and truck stop employees to do: He kept his


life. Because of his decision to get involved, the young woman is now back home with her family, and her kidnappers are in federal prison. Back in January 2015, Kimmel had never


heard of Truckers Against Trafficking, a nationwide organization that works to leverage the eyes and ears of truck drivers and other industry employees in the fight against human trafficking. He hadn’t been taught what signs to look for, and he didn’t know about the


eyes open, and he told someone what he saw. “We can have a lot of impact because there’s


so many of us,” Kimmel said. “Look at the difference it made for her, and it really took me nothing.” Truckers Against Trafficking was founded


in 2009 sisters Kendis Paris and Kylla Lanier, with the help of their mother and a third sister, after they read a book about the issue of human trafficking and realized what a powerful force truck drivers and truck stop employees could be in the effort to free victims of modern-day slavery. Truckers Against Trafficking


has three goals, said Lanier, now the organization’s deputy executive director. First, they want to reach the trucking industry through every avenue possible. Tey work with trucking schools, national and state trucking associations, carriers, even shippers who contract with carriers and are in a position to influence them to include TAT training for their drivers. Second, they work with law


enforcement to get them into the same room with key trucking industry stakeholders for training sessions. And third, they want to marshal


the resources of the trucking industry to help in the fight against human trafficking. So far, 46 state trucking associations have signed on as partners — including the Nebraska Trucking Association, which joined the effort last year — along with national trucking associations,


Continues NEBRASKA TRUCKER — ISSUE 1, 2016 — www.nebtrucking.com 15


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