NBWA Trains 24K As Part Of Human Trafficking Initiative

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The National Beer Wholesalers Association has trained more than 24,000 beer distribution employees across the country in the fight against human trafficking in the year since founding its Distributors Against Human Trafficking initiative.

Over the past year, NBWA has focused on mobilizing the more than 140,000 beer distribution employees across the country by providing local distributors the necessary tools and resources to recognize and report the signs of human trafficking.

“We are incredibly proud of the growth of our Distributors Against Human Trafficking initiative since its launch one year ago,” said NBWA President and CEO Craig Purser. “With the investment and dedication of distributors in every state across the country, we’ve been able to train thousands of workers to recognize the signs of human trafficking on their daily routes, strengthening the forces already working relentlessly to end this criminal activity in the U.S.”

To date, NBWA has successfully trained nearly 24,000 beer distributors from 207 companies, surpassing its initial goal to train 10,000 distributors by the end of 2021. In January alone — National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month — NBWA aimed to train 1,000 workers but far surpassed that goal, training 5,164. Now, NBWA aims to train at least 25,000 distributors by the end of the year.

“We anticipate continued growth throughout the next five months and are confident our industry will hit our increased target of 25,000 employees trained by the end of the year,” added Purser. “To do so, we plan to engage more industry and government leaders to continue to educate the public and the workforce on what they can do to combat human trafficking. Ultimately, increased awareness and training directly translates to lives saved from the horrendous crime that is human trafficking.”

Human trafficking continues to plague communities across the United States. In 2019 alone, the Polaris Project identified 22,326 victims and survivors of human trafficking, up 20 percent from the prior year. Additionally, human trafficking disproportionately targets vulnerable populations such as women and children. More than half of the active criminal human trafficking cases in the U.S. involved children.