A groundbreaking investigation by The New Yorker and Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program has shed light on a disturbing reality: some of the most prominent hotel franchises in the United States have been implicated in sex-trafficking crimes for decades. However, a novel legal approach is now emerging, offering survivors the chance to hold hotel corporations accountable for crimes committed on their premises.
According to a 2018 Polaris Survivor Survey cited in the report, a shocking 60 percent of sex-trafficking victims revealed that they were forced into prostitution within hotels. Louise Shelley, director of George Mason University’s Terrorism, Transnational Crime, and Corruption Center, emphasized that human trafficking often intersects with the legitimate economy, with hotels becoming critical points in the supply chain for these heinous crimes.
The investigation, reported by Bernice Yeung, is part of Trafficking Inc., a global collaborative effort led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, aiming to expose the networks of companies and individuals profiting from various forms of human trafficking worldwide.
One survivor, known by the pseudonym Anastasia, recounted her harrowing experience to The New Yorker and the Investigative Reporting Program. In 2013, her trafficker, a drug dealer named Fredrick Brown, moved her through hotels across four different states along the East Coast over six months.
Anastasia revealed that she was predominantly held at a Howard Johnson hotel in Pennsylvania, where the general manager, Faizal Bhimani, allegedly offered rooms to Brown in exchange for sex with Anastasia and other victims. When the police were nearby, Bhimani reportedly directed Brown to the nearby Pocono Plaza Inn, which shared the same owner.
Years later, Anastasia cooperated with a federal criminal sex-trafficking investigation, and along with seven other women, testified that they had been forced into prostitution at the Howard Johnson hotel. Both Bhimani and the hotel’s owning company were convicted of aiding and abetting sex trafficking.
Anastasia is now preparing, alongside her lawyer Steven Babin, to file a separate lawsuit against Wyndham Hotels, the corporation behind the Howard Johnson brand. Wyndham had severed ties with the franchised hotel where Anastasia was trafficked in the same year as the trial. In response to the pending litigation, Wyndham issued a written statement condemning human trafficking but declined to comment further.
This case is just one of many similar litigations that have emerged over the past decade, targeting hotel corporations that profit from franchised properties where sex-trafficking crimes occur. These lawsuits operate under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which was expanded in 2008 to allow survivors to sue anyone who knowingly benefited from enterprises enabling trafficking.
The hotel industry, in general, has publicly spoken out against trafficking.
However, the franchise model has proven challenging to address trafficking proactively. Historically, franchises have emphasized the independent ownership of their hotels to shield corporations from liability related to safety and crime. Notably, disclosure documents from 10 major franchisers revealed that none had updated their contracts to explicitly cite trafficking as grounds for terminating a franchise agreement.
In 2015, the first sex-trafficking case was filed against an individual hotel. Since then, over 110 sex-trafficking lawsuits have been lodged against hotel franchisers, according to data cited from the Human Trafficking Legal Center.
Many of the legal questions raised by these cases remain unanswered, as none of the trafficking lawsuits against franchisers have reached trial, with several ending in settlements, and around half still ongoing.
Annie McAdams, a Houston attorney who filed some of the earliest trafficking cases against hotel chains, noted that this form of litigation is unprecedented, effectively shaping the future of the law in this area. As survivors and their legal representatives continue to seek justice and accountability, the outcome of these cases holds significant implications for the fight against sex trafficking within the hotel industry.
