​BEST was founded on the belief that businesses have the power to make a difference when it comes to preventing human trafficking. That’s why it’s crucial that BEST’s Board of Directors include leaders with insight into modern business acumen who can help advise BEST on the inner workings of large corporations. BEST board member, Megan Minarik, brings this business insight to BEST. Megan is currently a Merchandise Manager at the prominent e-commerce company, Zulily. She has built an impressive career in the retail industry that spans over 15 years and has been a valuable member of BEST’s Board of Directors for four years. Megan serves as BEST’s Fundraising Chair, and her work on the Board is helping BEST expand our programs nationally.

Zulily’s is a retail business, but at its root—it’s really about technology. The company uses advanced data and automated reasoning to make decisions that are constantly transforming its website, serving up millions of variations of products on its homepage, and launching thousands of unique items daily. As a Merchandise Manager, Megan is responsible for making corporate decisions that help drive Zulily’s success in the consumer marketplace. She brings to BEST’s Board of Directors a valuable corporate perspective that helps BEST understand how to deliver programs that truly help large corporations. 

Although Megan has dedicated her professional career to the retail industry, there’s a reason she has such a vested interest in BEST’s work to prevent human trafficking. Growing up in Golden, Colorado and Spokane, Washington, Megan’s mother worked as a nurse, and some of her patients were the victims of physical and sexual abuse. Her mother would not share confidential patient information with Megan and her sister, but she was transparent with them about the level of violence and exploitation some of her patients were put through. Many of them were vulnerable children. These talks with her mother gave Megan insight into the brutal world of human trafficking, and the ugly truth that it was absolutely happening within their community.

As she grew up, Megan gained a degree in Business Administration and Apparel Merchandising from Washington State University and went on to build a successful career in retail. But she never forgot the influence of her mother’s patients and the compassion she had developed for vulnerable people. As it ended up, one of her good friends was married to an attorney who represented cases with people who had been sex trafficked. Whenever she saw these friends, Megan would curiously ask him a lot of questions about the crime of human trafficking, and the laws surrounding it—and most of all—what happened to the survivors of human trafficking? Who was helping them?

Megan’s friend introduced her to Val Richie, who was the Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for the King County Prosecutor’s Office. Val not only gave Megan more insight about the crime of human trafficking, but he also introduced her to BEST’s Executive Director, Mar Brettmann, who encouraged Megan to join BEST’s Board of Directors in 2015. 
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Since then, Megan has been a champion for BEST, helping the organization grow and expand to reach more businesses both inside and outside of Washington state. BEST is grateful for Megan’s dedication and expertise that she brings to the Board. Her knowledge of business leadership, compassion for vulnerable people, and commitment to this issue is sure to continue to help BEST make an impact in preventing human trafficking. 

BEST has partnered up with the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association (PRLA) to make human trafficking awareness training available to all of PRLA’s hotel members and their staffs. Starting last month, BEST began providing our online Inhospitable to Human Trafficking training, sponsored by AAHOA, to PRLA’s members in order to help front line hotel employees across Pennsylvania learn the indicators of human trafficking and how to safely report it to law enforcement.
 
Human trafficking networks often rely on legitimate businesses to sustain their operations and infrastructure. Given the transient nature of the hotel industry, with its service-focused culture that respects guest privacy, hotels are an ideal environment for human traffickers. So it is essential that hotel employees, who have direct contact with guests, are trained in what to look for—so they can recognize the signs of human trafficking.
 
“There is no easy fix to the problem of human trafficking, but combating this crime starts with awareness,” says Mar Brettmann, Executive Director for BEST. “That’s why our new partnership with PRLA is so important. They are making our human trafficking awareness training free to all their hospitality members and staffs. We know that educating employees about the warning signs of human trafficking can help witnesses know when to report suspicious behavior, and this helps recover more human trafficking victims.”   

BEST’s Inhospitable to Human Trafficking training for hotel employees is a 30-minute, online, video-based training. The training is available in English or Spanish, and it has been proven to increase hotel employee reporting. Researchers from the University of Washington evaluated BEST's hotel training and found trained employees were more likely to come forward to report human trafficking incidents to their mangers. Researchers also learned 96 percent of hotel employee participants believe the training made their hotel safer.

This new partnership will give more hospitality property owners and managers across the Commonwealth the opportunity to implement BEST’s valuable anti-trafficking training, and this will help prevent human traffickers from being able to use Pennsylvania hotels to carry out their exploitation and crimes. 
 
“Everyone has a role in fighting human trafficking. Our industry is well-positioned to recognize and report it, so we want to ensure our members have access to the right training so they know what to look for. We chose to partner with BEST because BEST offers outstanding online training that will equip our members and their employees to take action when they suspect a problem," said John Longstreet, PRLA President & CEO.

Guest Blog Post By: Chris Williams, Partner at Cedar Law PLLC

I used to only think about sex trafficking as part of the worst scenarios portrayed in television and movies. However, my professional career has always involved working with or for children and I eventually began to see the damage this type of abuse has on kids in multiple arenas. Going as far back as my first year out of college and serving in a high school as a VISTA volunteer, I heard students talking about friends resorting to “tricking” during casual discussions about what people were going to do after they graduated. Later I worked in a group home for seriously abused and neglected children. I met multiple girls who had been sexually abused and intervened in at least four of their suicide attempts (I am happy to be finally forgetting some of the details of those incidents). After law school, I worked in juvenile courts across the state and saw judges and social workers struggle to keep children in foster care out of the sex trade, many of whom saw it as a lifestyle they preferred over living with strangers in a foster home.

We Need a Cultural Shift 

Comparing these experiences to the casual nature in which many men and the entertainment industry still talk about prostitution led me to the conclusion that a cultural change is necessary. These acts have serious lifelong consequences for too many unseen victims. More than people know about. Sadly, (intolerable) discussions among many men about bachelor parties, road trips, and other reasons to gather and celebrate frequently involve – at a minimum – jokes about prostitution. There is a vast disconnect between the popular notions about prostitution and the practical realities for many, if not most, of those who are engaged in it.

Too many people ignore the involvement of children. Too many people overlook the victimization of boys. Too many people blindly assume that some level of actual consent must have been given. When violence is committed, too many people raise their hands and assume the victim was complicit by putting themselves in danger. Too many people also have no idea that it is happening all round them almost all the time.

In a shift that is both fair and sound public policy, prosecutors are increasingly charging customers instead of prostitutes. We can rarely arrest our way out of most societal ills, however. So we must contribute to a cultural shift which eradicates the widespread celebration of prostitution. “Sex trafficking” is the legal term that includes acts of prostitution involving any minor and anyone (adult or child) engaged in it by threat or use of force, fraud, or coercion. Awareness of the real harms and how often people are purchasing sex is necessary if this cultural shift is to occur.

Businesses Can Drive Change

Studies and surveys of those who have engaged in transactional sex are beginning to reveal that the business community must be engaged to help eliminate demand for prostitution. Men are frequently using their work environment to facilitate acts of prostitution. Victims report that they have frequently been contacted by men at their workplaces and then had sex at those same workplaces. Many other businesses are also used to facilitate the sex acts (i.e. hotels, car services, websites, etc.). Violence and victimization is occurring with the assistance of business assets.
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Responsible business management can do a lot to prevent these harms, however. And altruism is not the only reason to act. Businesses lose money when they become associated with prostitution and sex trafficking. Reputational interests can lose value suddenly but there are also legal claims that can damage the bottom line.

Attorneys Can Help Business Clients Drive Change

BEST assembled a training for legal professionals to help them identify these various issues for the benefit of a variety of clients. From both a plaintiff and defendant perspective, awareness of the intersection between sex trafficking and the business community is critical value lawyers can bring to bear in the advice they provide. BEST’s free CLE course is available online and can help attorneys open client eyes to issues and liabilities that have probably gone overlooked. As awareness increases of the frequency of and harms caused by sex trafficking, businesses that contribute to the cultural change that eradicates the practice will be doing the right thing and protecting their assets. I highly encourage legal professionals to watch BEST’s free CLE and incorporate it into your professional expertise and advice.
 


​Chris Williams is a partner at Cedar Law PLLC, which specializes in education law. He previously served as a senior assistant general counsel for Seattle Public Schools, assistant attorney general for the state of Washington, and as counsel for numerous Seattle-area nonprofits. He volunteers with Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST) to support its efforts to eradicate sex trafficking by eliminating safe havens in which it operates. He can be reached at chris@cedarlawpllc.com. 
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