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1. Empowering the poor in society so that they do not engage in this vice.
2. Ensuring that individuals may easily access education opportunities thus ensuring that children will not be lured to this trade.
3. Educating the masses on the importance of ensuring that children, women and other vulnerable groups are protected.

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It was founded in 1996 by Nancy Rivard, who was then a flight attendant.

"We just did it on our own as a public service because we had the front-line personnel," Ms. Rivard said, noting that the organization began focusing on human trafficking in 2009 and has held 52 training sessions in the United States and abroad since 2011.

There were 8,042 reported cases of human trafficking in the United States last year - the most ever, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit organization Polaris. Most of those came through calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which was established by the federal government in December 2007 and is operated by Polaris in a public-private partnership.

The number of reported cases has been rising every year since the hotline was established.

But it is not all bad news, said Bradley Myles, Polaris's chief executive.

"We don't necessarily want to give the impression that just because we're learning about more cases, the crime is increasing," Mr. Myles said. "It's actually possible that the response is getting more sophisticated."

Encouragingly, he added, more and more of these reports are coming directly from trafficking victims, which suggests a growing awareness among those who need it most that the hotline exists.

Ms. Hubbard sees victim outreach as vital to her work, but she is hesitant to give details about her own ordeal. She entered an arranged marriage at 16, she said, but the worst abuses did not start until her early 20s, when she described being "bought and sold, traded and bartered."

"Usually, the traffickers play on people's ignorance and naïveté," she said. "Traffickers exploit people who are vulnerable."

That is part of the lesson she imparts to airline personnel, along with practical advice on how to spot people who may be traveling against their will - often young passengers who look disoriented, refuse to make eye contact or act oddly subservient to a traveling companion.

American Airlines, Ms. Rivard's former employer, offers free miles to the volunteers of Airline Ambassadors International. American's employees already undergo training on human trafficking, led by the Department of Homeland Security, according to a company representative.

Ms. Rivard said airlines' existing programs are not enough. She cited instances in which she said airline staff failed to take signs of trafficking seriously, and added that she wished more resources were available to her organization.

"It doesn't cost much. We try to raise about $3,000 per training" from individual donors, she said.

An Airline Ambassadors International training session in late January in Houston, just before the Super Bowl there, was filled to capacity.

"It was an amazing event," Ms. Hubbard said. "I give kudos to the city of Houston and to the agencies that are doing the work on the ground."

Though human trafficking gets more attention during major sporting events like the Super Bowl, there is little hard evidence - from Polaris or elsewhere - to suggest a major spike in trafficking during large events.

"We don't think it's useful to somehow give the impression that there are new victims and new types of trafficking that only happen around that time," Mr. Myles said, though he added that major events might lure criminals who were already operating in other areas.

The Houston Police Department has been revamping its approach to human trafficking for years, said Capt. Dan Harris, of the department's vice division. It now offers training on human trafficking for officers as well as assistance for survivors.

"We had the processes, the procedures and the relationships already in place," Captain Harris said. "The only thing we really did for the Super Bowl was work more hours in order to go after, mainly, the johns."

While law enforcement agencies and charities work to address the problem on the ground, Ms. Hubbard and other flight attendants plan to keep an eye on things in the air.

"If someone is being held against their will, then a crime is being committed inside my airplane," she said. "So it is my responsibility to make sure that these people - whose lives are in my hands while they're on board my aircraft - are safe."

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Flight Attendants Fight Human Trafficking With Eyes in the Sky

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It was founded in 1996 by Nancy Rivard, who was then a flight attendant. "We just did it on our own as a public service because we had the front-line personnel," Ms. Rivard said, noting that the organization began focusing on human trafficking in 2009 and has held 52 training sessions in the United States and abroad since 2011.

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HONG KONG-China says it has rescued more than 400 kidnapped women and children from human-trafficking gangs during a crackdown last month, but parents of missing children say government efforts have barely scratched the surface of a growing social problem.

Public security vice minister Zhang Xinfeng vowed last week to extend the anti-trafficking campaign, which ran from April 9-May 4, calling on police at all levels to seek more information from the public in missing persons cases.

He said police had already rescued 196 children and 214 women during the campaign and broken up 72 human-trafficking rings, mostly in Guizhou, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shandong, Henan, and Shanxi provinces, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

But parents in the southern city of Nanning said 200 children were still missing in their region, and police had prevented parents from staging a public protest to draw attention to the problem.

"On the day we planned to hold the protest, the police kept watch at the bus terminal and intercepted us," said a parent of a missing child surnamed Mo.

...Some men snatched the baby from my daughter's arms and got away in a van..."

Dongguan mother

Mo, who is a member of a nongovernment group set up to support parents of missing children, said police figures from last month's campaign were suspect.

"Those are all old cases," he said of the reported success stories. "They were reported a long time ago."

"They re-reported the found children," Mo said. "We have several hundred missing children in the Alliance but not one has been found by police."

Mo said many parents who tried to report their children missing met with refusal by police even to open a case file, while local media had failed to publicize information about lost children.

Parents of missing children in the southern province of Guangdong said they were also planning further protests but faced surveillance from their neighborhood security committee.

"The police dispatched the neighborhood committee to monitor us," one parent said. "Whenever we go anywhere, they will follow us."

"Two days ago, a Hong Kong TV station tried to interview some parents of missing children, but had to do it secretly in a hotel. Once we contact any strangers or try to leave Dongguan, they will question us immediately," he added.

Vice police chief Zhang called for the speedy completion of a nationwide DNA database to help parents and police identify trafficked children.

Police departments at all levels should be ready to collect blood samples from parents whose children were confirmed missing and parents who actively ask to donate blood samples to aid investigations, he said.

Blood samples should also be routinely taken from rescued children, children of unknown origin who may have been trafficked, and homeless street children, he said.

Liao Tianqi, deputy publisher of the U.S.-based Chinese-language online magazine "Observe China," said the trafficking problem was fueled by a huge demand for children in China, regardless of their source.

"There is a huge market in China for children," she said.

"China has a one-child policy, and yet a lot of families want to have a boy. Of course it's not just male children who are being trafficked. It's girls as well."

She said boys were often sold to people as sons, while the girls ended up filling a traditional rural role, that of daughters-in-law who are raised in the same household before marriage to one of the family's sons.

"With the women, they are sold to rural families as wives, and in the worst cases, young girls and women are forced into prostitution," Liao said. "Another reason is to do with [deteriorating] social morality."
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China has published a list of the top 50 most-wanted names for human trafficking, with two arrests made so far.

A mother from Dongguan, in southern China's Guangdong province, said her six-month-old boy was snatched from his sister's arms just outside the family's house in November 2007.

"My son was playing with my eight-year-old daughter. My daughter was holding him," the woman, surnamed Deng, said.

"Then some men snatched the baby from my daughter's arms and got away in a van with a few other men inside," she added.

She said the local police had refused to support the family's plans to air a paid commercial appealing for information.

"The TV station demanded a note from the police station proving that our child was really missing," Deng said.

"But the police station said this was a big criminal case and as such cannot be publicized," she said.

"They said it would have a bad effect on society."

She said her family planned to continue protesting in the face of apparent inaction by the authorities.

Parents' support groups say around 1,000 children have gone missing in recent years from Dongguan and surrounding areas, although official figures only show 400 missing child cases.
Original reporting in Cantonese by Ho Shan and in Mandarin by Xi Wang. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

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HONG KONG-China says it has rescued more than 400 kidnapped women and children from human-trafficking gangs during a crackdown last month, but parents of missing children say government efforts have barely scratched the surface of a growing social problem.

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Child trafficking in China often starts with parents selling their own kids

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Poor parents sometimes resort to trafficking for money.