In 2021 Southwest Airlines reported a white mom to authorities in Denver for the crime of traveling with her biracial daughter. It appeared that there was no other basis for suspicion than the races of the mother and child. Now the mom is suing the airline.
They were flying Los Angeles to Denver and on to San Jose for a funeral, and were met on the jet bridge in Denver by police and by a representative of the airline because a crewmember reported “possible Human Trafficking.” The flight attendant noticed,
- The mother and daughter didn’t speak to each other much during the flight (the girl was listening to an audiobook and they reportedly did speak, just not when the flight attendant was present)
- the mother “did not allow the child to talk to flight crew” (the mother says she didn’t forbid it, the girl was engrossed in… her audiobook)
- the passengers had boarded “suspiciously late”
While she was “cleared” at the airport, there was a follow up investigation – including being contacted again a week later over “suspicion of human trafficking.”
Airline and hotel employees are taught to use their prejudices to spot and report human trafficking, and this often works out badly. Flight attendants are told they need to be on the lookout, and you have to sympathize with the position that puts them in. Imagine if they didn’t say something when they could have stopped a bad situation? That would haunt them. So better to raise the accusation or flag innocent people for law enforcement to sort out. And that gives you situations like,
- An African American social service worker was traveling with a white baby and accused of kidnapping by an American Airlines flight attendant as a result.
- Armed Port Authority police boarded an American Airlines plane at New York JFK because a flight attendant saw an Asian American woman follow her hispanic husband to the lavatory (he was feeling unwell) and saw that they shared an orange juice. The flight attendant called for a sex trafficking investigation. It found their drivers licenses displayed the same home address because they were married, just different races.
- Cindy McCain once fabricated a story about catching a toddler being trafficked at the Phoenix airport.
- Southwest Airlines demanded to see Facebook posts when a white mother checked in with her mixed-race son, claiming this was ‘federal law’.
This family is on a holiday weekend adventure to support @Kenzie4bs at @usabasketball U18 trials. 💙💛🐻 pic.twitter.com/cbAcRdKyhJ
— Lindsay Gottlieb (@CalCoachG) May 26, 2018
Hotel staff are trained by the Department of Homeland Security to report guests with too many used condoms in the trash, as well as:
- frequent use of the “Do Not Disturb” sign (you’re tired and don’t want to be bothered)
- guests who avert their eyes or don’t make eye contact (you’re tired and don’t want to be bothered)
- people with “lower quality clothing than companions” (no one ever accused me of fashion)
- people who have “suspicious tattoos” (which just means you’re from Austin or Portland)
- having multiple computers, cell phones, and other technology (you’re a blogger)
- “presence of photography equipment” (you’re a blogger)
- refusal of cleaning services for multiple days (you ‘made a green choice’ or ‘fear Covid’)
- rooms paid for with cash or a rechargeable credit card (you have to unload your gift card purchases somehow)
- guests with few personal possessions (you refuse to check a bag because you’re a frequent traveler)
See something, say something, when you’re encouraging amateurs to do it, leads to so many false positives that real cases of sex trafficking seem likely to get less attention. Employees think they are ‘trained’ when they’re really using their prejudices – in this case against a white mother traveling with her biracial daughter.
(HT: Elizabeth Nolan Brown)
Real crime here is flying LA to DEN to get to San Jose, no?
In 2022 US airlines transported 853 million passengers. Has there EVER been an instance of an airline employee successfuly detecting human trafikking? That these people even think they are qualified to do so is beyond ridiculous.
Yes,, and similarly (from the Air Canada article) that “customs” is going to keep out any undesirables or prevent anything. Just a hassles for the honest and a mere speed bump for the criminally determined.
Unfortunate that these situations sometimes spiral out of control and I will agree there are some overzealous employees out there. With my airport agents, I’ve had some instances where they have raised a flag and it was seemingly legitimate…. A small child who did not want to go with a parent onto an airplane, who the Flight Attendant questioned and the parent got very upset, and the child reiterated it did not want to be there. The parent on questioning got up, left the plane, and disappeared from the airport abandoning the child. Turns out, she was trying to skip town after losing custody of the child. Another instance was a young woman who didn’t speak English who was seemingly controlled by an older American man (who was in his late 70s). He even followed her to the lavatory and stood outside while she went, wouldn’t let her talk with the crew, took her beverage and poured it for her, and generally touched her inappropriately. We met the flight… turns out he’d just married someone 60 years his junior he met on the internet from overseas. I guess “innocent” enough but could have easily been something else.
I think the training for airline employees could be better. Some airports and their local law enforcement give additional training for employees that, from those that I’ve taken, are just as focused on what is probably not trafficking as what may be.
I don’t blame that gal for suing the airline company. These flight attendants have no business or training to even begin to spot that
Lawsuits are the only way this type of stupidity will end. If I’m on the jury and they prove the case I would award her $5 million or five years senior captain pay, whichever is greater.
I mean, I opt out of housekeeping and routinely leave the Do Not Disturb sign up. I also often have photography equipment.
Those are ridiculous red flags, and the eye contact thing is also ableist. I’m waiting for somebody to be accused of trafficking their autistic kid now.
The avoiding eye contact one is common, too.
Just found one on a child trafficking red flag list “Has knowledge about the geography of multiple urban areas.” Like, say, parents MOVE?
An assessment tool lists some more red flags
“Traveler has someone speaking for him/her” – disabled/special needs adult. Or full time kink…it’s a thing.
“Traveler is an adult and is not carrying their own identification documents” – disabled/special needs adult
“Traveler exhibts fear, anxiety, depression” – scared of flying.
And I get it. Trafficking is a real problem. But we need to train people to look at the entire situation, not just a list of red flags.
This is ridiculous. There were many clues here: They have the same last name, paid with credit cards, the child is not in the proper age range, etc. If anything law enforcement should know better and shouldn’t have wasted more than 5 minutes after they landed.
Sounds like all involved (except the mother) need some DEI training. You would think by now they understand that multiracial families are ok and not a sign of criminal activity LOL
I read the article. There were red flags . FAs are in a no win situation. Instructed to “if you see something, say something- report suspicious activity “ but scolded when they do.
“Damn if you do, damned if you don’t “
Southwest will have to do a lot better and maybe they will if the lose the lawsuit big or settle for a lot. The nanny state is out of control. Absolutely no reason for the false accusations.
Human trafficking is real and is pervasive. Hundreds of thousands of children and women are trafficked internationally each year, mostly from poor countries to rich ones. I’ve asked before when these stories are posted, what do you consider an acceptable or unacceptable ratio of false positives and false negatives? The training needs to be thorough; the process for handling any suspect situations needs to be discreet and efficient; a system should be set up where people can quickly show their relationship if questioned. Human trafficking is not a joke and I think posts like this one tend to minimize the crime. I would respectfully ask the scoffers and Gary, what is your plan to combat human trafficking? And yes people have been rescued by flight attendants: https://news.amomama.com/281502-flight-attendant-saves-girl-human-traffi.html
Yeah lets all joke about it until an actual girl who could’ve been saved from a lifetime of sex trafficking was lost forever because someone was too chicken shit to speak up for fear of being mocked on an online travel blog. Some of yall don’t have children and its so painfully obvious
These are American companies, training will be the lowest cost option that takes the least amount of time and just meet any recommendations. Any follow up will be a 5 minute video. Why would we expect any different results.
Better training and also implicit bias training. The issue here is that the family was targeted because they were mixed race, and don’t say it’s not.
Deeper is the fact that the flight attendants may not have *realized* they were doing it.
And a system for handling false positives with more dignity. I suspect the vast majority of the commenters here are white and don’t understand how a mixed race kid is going to react to being met by cops. I mean, I don’t understand how it feels, but I do understand systemic racism.
Maybe keep the cops out of sight until the airline has talked to the parent.
I’m not saying an eye shouldn’t be kept out, but if the kid has headphones on, then of course they’re less likely to talk to the flight attendants and if she cared more about her book than beverage service… And according to another post the other red flag was them trying to get seats together! The kid’s 10, of course her mom doesn’t want her sitting next to a stranger on the other end of the plane. (And somebody did apparently move for them).
And this happens to mixed race families *all the time*. In fact, the mother concerned was already afraid to travel without her daughter’s birth certificate.
Some more examples of this:
White man and adopted Chinese kid: https://abc7chicago.com/southwest-airlines-human-trafficking-brian-smith/2811854/
Black woman accused of trafficking white adoptive sister: https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/black-aurora-woman-questioned-for-trafficking-white-sister-at-dallas-airport
Black/Native American policewoman who says she has to carry her daughter’s birth certificate AND give her husband a permission letter: https://thegrio.com/2019/02/15/parents-of-biracial-children-nervous-after-cindy-mccains-false-human-trafficking-report/
Turns out it’s not just the U.S. and not just flight attendants: White woman who was separated from her *disabled* mixed-race son and questioned at the Channel Tunnel: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2448505/Woman-detained-under-Terrorism-Act-and-accused-of-trafficking-her-son.html
This is an aspect of systemic racism and an excuse to harass people. THAT is why I am “scoffing”. Because it’s an automatic red flag if your child, adopted or biological, looks to be of a different ethnicity. They don’t “need” anything else.
There’s no “training” for the kind of “human trafficking” that addled Blue Bloods-watching Trump voters are concerned about, because it doesn’t exist.
If there has ever been a single incident of “someone kidnapping a child they don’t know into sex slavery and flying them somewhere on a commercial airline” I would be surprised. Certainly the chance of any given airline employee ever encountering this is so close to zero that it makes no sense for them to try to “report” anything – you’ll be paying out $100M in lawsuits for every one report that’s even worth investigating at best.
As always, the only thing a flight attendant should be doing is SHUT UP AND POUR THE DRINKS. Do not speak, do not attempt to use whatever is in your head instead of a brain to “think,” and do not roleplay as a QAnon cop.
On the one hand, Ron has a point. In fact, what is far more likely to happen, and has (and has been stopped by flight attendants) is parental kidnapping due to a custody fight. In other words, a child that does look like the person they are with is actually *more* likely to be being “trafficked.”
On the other hand, flight attendants do a heck of a lot more than “shut up and pour the drinks.” In general, I’m not big on disrespecting them. Flight attendants routinely save lives during incidents. They aren’t sky waiters.
Something interesting I noticed while looking up previous incidents:
They all seem to be low cost airlines.
Southwest. Frontier. So that tells me that this probably IS a training issue. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong and they have a similar incident that’s with a major carrier like American or British Airways.
Flight attendants often TRY to do more than shut up and pour the drinks, which is an error on their part. They are WAY too respected for how dumb and self-important they are – the ridiculous notion that they ever “save lives during incidents” and are some kind of first responder personnel is a great example of that.
Ron, you are insulting people who’s job is to keep you safe.
18-year flight attendant saves a passenger who has a heart attack using CPR while a nurse gets the AED: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/passenger-heart-attack-flight-sunwing-canada-b2182408.html
Another similar incident, with no handy nurse to help this time: https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/09/22/waiting-for-takeoff-her-heart-stopped-flight-attendants-came-to-the-rescue
Russian flight attendant died trying to get a door open. He wasn’t able to save anyone, but he died trying: https://www.businessinsider.com/moscow-crash-aeroflot-flight-attendant-died-trying-to-save-passengers-2019-5
His coworker, at a different door, was physically *throwing* people down the escape chute: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/aeroflot-crash-flight-attendant-grabbed-passengers-by-the-collar-to-save-them/ji5udwkh1
Here’s a crash in which the entire right side of the plane was on fire and MELTING. The flight attendants got everyone off: https://samchui.com/2023/01/04/miracle-at-denver-continental-flight-1404/
They Are Not Sky Waiters. I wouldn’t call them first responders in the traditional sense. But they have special protection under the law for a reason. I hope you never need their help in an emergency. I hope none of us ever do.
Also, if there is an incident, they’re much more likely to be hurt than passengers. Let’s say a plane hits severe turbulence with no warning. Nine times out of ten the person that gets hurt is a flight attendant because they were doing their job and not in their seat.
Respect flight attendants.
That doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to bitch if they are providing poor service, of course. But…again. Not sky waiters.
(And I also discovered several incidents where properly trained flight attendants DID save people from being trafficked. The problem here is the racism).