Wyndham joins efforts to end human trafficking (Americas)

After five years of hard work on the part of Mercy's shareholder advocacy staff and members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), Wyndham Hotels has become the latest in the travel industry to sign the ECPAT Code to end human trafficking.

In 2006, Sr. Valerie Heinonen, osu, director of shareholder advocacy for Mercy Investment Services, engaged Wyndham in a dialogue on behalf of the Sisters of Mercy. Mercy, along with other members of ICCR, filed a resolution on the issue of human trafficking in 2007 and withdrew it based on positive conversations with Wyndham.

Over the years, Wyndham has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to the human trafficking movement, becoming one of the first hotels to offer rooms to the Polaris Project, which rescues trafficking victims. As a subscriber to the Code, Wyndham will implement policies that condemn child trafficking and provide training to help its employees identify and report trafficking activities. Wyndham will also raise awareness among its business partners and customers by including information about the issue and the Code through its website and meetings, and by annually reporting on its progress.

Sr. Valerie said, "Wyndham has engaged with faith-based investors and ECPAT over the past five years and included repudiation of child sexual exploitation in its human rights policy since 2007. While some hotel companies with franchised properties have shied away from signing the Code believing it is too difficult to implement, Wyndham, with 7,000 franchised hotels, has shown that it is not only possible, but will be beneficial to the company." Wyndham joins Delta Airlines, Carlson (Radisson, Country Inns and Suites), Millennium Hotel St. Louis and Hilton Hotels (Hilton, Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites) who have previously signed the Code.

Messages to Pat Zerega - Director of shareholder advocacy