Human Trafficking Prevention and Workers Rights

SeattleFWC26 recently announced our Human Rights Priorities for Seattle’s six FIFA World Cup 26™ matches. This update gets specific about SeattleFWC26’s plans and the actions on the first two priorities: Preventing Human Trafficking and Promoting Workers Rights. Upcoming Human Rights updates will dig into the remaining priorities: hosting inclusive celebrations, safeguarding vulnerable populations, supporting the right to peaceful assembly, and equipping residents and visitors to seek help and report harm when human rights concerns arise.

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PREVENTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Human trafficking prevention was one of the most consistently raised topics of concern in SeattleFWC26’s early community engagement on human rights. Community members, service providers, law enforcement, local government leaders, and most importantly survivors have frequently identified both the persistent risk and reality of human trafficking that exists in our community on any given day and the elevated risk that comes with large events like the FIFA World Cup™.

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Partnering with BEST for Nearly a Year to Train Businesses and Workers on Human Trafficking Prevention

SeattleFWC26 decided early on to focus on prevention and awareness of human trafficking, recognizing that mitigating human trafficking as it happens and responding to human trafficking after it has occurred are parts of the overall effort for which community-based providers and the legal system are best suited.  SeattleFWC26 began working on prevention a year ahead of the tournament through a partnership with Businesses Ending Sex Trafficking (BEST).  A comprehensive overview of SeattleFWC26’s Human Trafficking prevention initiative with links to training resources is available online. Initiative highlights include:

• A Leadership Kickoff Session on June 12, 2025, engaging supervisors and front-of-house leaders—including security, customer service, food service, retail, and custodial teams—from businesses located along the Unity Loop in downtown Seattle and within SeattleFWC26’s nine statewide Fan Zone communities. The session focused on raising awareness, encouraging early training adoption, and setting the tone for prevention efforts ahead of FIFA World Cup 2026™. A total of 32 businesses participated in the Leadership Kickoff Session, and more than 100 leaders completed BEST Basics in advance of World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.

• Between June 2025 and January 2026, 2,500 licenses to the BEST Basics online training were distributed to participating organizations, with a focus on businesses and frontline workers operating along the Unity Loop and in Fan Zone locations across the state.  

• On October 8, 2025, 22 businesses participated in an in-person Strategy Development Workshop to create customized human trafficking prevention and response plans, including internal reporting protocols, staff support strategies, and prevention policies tailored to their operations and guest-facing environments.

• In January 2026, 30 businesses participated in a live virtual Q&A session designed to reinforce learning, deepen understanding, and provide trained staff the opportunity to ask questions in alignment with National Human Trafficking Prevention Month recognition goals.

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In total, more than 75 employers spanning twenty industries participated in pre-World Cup training and planning activities to prevent Human Trafficking as a part of this initiative.

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Recognizing the statewide impact—and therefore the statewide responsibility—of hosting the FIFA World Cup, SeattleFWC26, BEST, the Port of Seattle, and Fan Zone communities broadened training participation to cities across Washington.

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Recognizing Essential Partners

Ending human trafficking will take a team working together over the long haul. SeattleFWC26 thanks two partners whose support is essential to the ongoing work to prevent Human Trafficking:

• SeattleFWC26 is also proudly amplifying a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP) awareness campaign of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, SeattleFWC26’s Presenting Legacy Supporter.  The Puyallup Tribe of Indians’ MMIWP campaign in-turn highlights the work of Indigenous communities and agencies throughout Washington, including the important work of the Washington State Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force, convened by the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, and their comprehensive Missing Indigenous Persons Toolkit.

• The Port of Seattle is a long-time leader in our region’s work to combat human trafficking and another essential partner. SeattleFWC26 proudly recommends the Port of Seattle’s online resource page for combatting Human Trafficking and the Port’s online human trafficking toolkit.

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Call to Action: Take the Training. Be Part of the Solution!

SeattleFWC26 and BEST have partnered to make the BEST Basics training available for free to 2,500 people before the World Cup kicks off.  There are still a handful of free training spots available.  To take the training and help make Seattle inhospitable to Human Trafficking, visit the BEST Training Center, register as a user, enter our limited availability code: FIFA26-SEA, and then take the training. This code will work until all 2,500 training licenses have been used. ‍

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PROMOTING WORKERS RIGHTS

SeattleFWC26 also committed early to using the occasion of the FIFA World Cup to promote workers rights, with a specific emphasis on promoting innovate partnerships with local labor organizations and leaders.

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Early agreements set the tone for a World Cup that supports Workers’ Rights.

In June 2024, First and Goal, Inc., the operator of Lumen Field (Seattle Stadium), negotiated a landmark Labor Harmony Agreement with the Martin Luther King, Jr. County Labor Council (MLK Labor), the Central Labor Council for the Seattle region, and 15 affiliate unions. This Labor Harmony Agreement, grounded from a longstanding union history, set the tone for workers’ rights to be at home in the stadium that will host all of Seattle’s FIFA World Cup matches.

Later in 2024, SeattleFWC26, MLK Labor, and 17 labor unions signed a first of its kind Labor Standards Agreement.  This innovative agreement set forth standards for wages and working conditions for the version of the Fan Celebration that SeattleFWC26 was planning at the time. As tournament planning progressed, SeattleFWC26 adjusted its plans to a more community-based approach to celebrations for fans.  

Preserving the spirit of the Labor Standards Agreement, SeatttleFWC26 and MLK Labor have since identified meaningful opportunities to advance workers’ rights as Seattle prepares to host the FIFA World Cup.

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SeattleFWC26 Supports the Pacific Northwest Hospitality Training Program

SeattleFWC26 recently became a funder of the Pacific Northwest Hospitality Program’s Prep Cook Training Course. The Pacific Northwest Hospitality Training Program is a newly established labor-management partnership between 15 hospitality employers in King County and UNITE HERE! Local 8, the union for hospitality workers in the Pacific Northwest.    

With SeattleFWC26’s support, the program is training18 prep cooks for hire by Levy Restaurants. The newly trained prep cooks, who graduate on May 8, 2026, will work in hospitality roles at Seattle Stadium during the FIFA World Cup. More importantly, this class of 18 trained workers now has the support and skills to keep working in well-paid, represented jobs long after the tournament concludes.

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Supporting UNtemp, A New Model For Gig Work Flexibility and Union Job Protections

Another effort that SeattleFWC26 is supporting is the UNtemp hiring platform. UNtemp is a first of its kind gig worker dispatch platform that combines the flexibility of standard gig work with the peace of mind and labor protections of a union job. SeattleFWC26 has committed to contracting through UNtemp for janitorial and event services for activities such as a forthcoming Blind Soccer International Friendly match as well as several tournament-time activities that SeattleFWC26 will lead in June and July 2026.  

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Reinforcing Existing Protections

SeattleFWC26 also celebrates Seattle’s strong civic culture of protecting the rights of workers. In addition to the essential work of labor unions in advancing workers’ rights, the City of Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards (OLS) plays an important role in educating employers about the City’s laws and investigating workers’ complaints when issues arise. Earlier this year, SeattleFWC26 introduced FIFA representatives to the team at OLS to ensure FIFA has the relationships and information necessary to understand Seattle’s labor laws.  

Seattle OLS has also created an in-depth online resource so that employers and workers have access to the same information in the run-up to the FIFA World Cup. The online resource includes access to technical assistance for employers, a portal for workers to ask questions or file complaints, and materials in multiple languages so that more workers can seek support.

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The Importance of Setting Role and Resource-Appropriate Human Rights Priorities

SeattleFWC26’s Human Rights Advisory Committee identified five local Human Rights Priorities in 2025: workers’ rights, human trafficking, inclusive celebrations, safeguarding vulnerable populations, and supporting the right to peaceful assembly.  

Starting with the FIFA Human Rights Framework, SeattleFWC26 incorporated community feedback and each member’s expertise and experience in local human rights work to identify which human rights issues are most salient for our region.  The committee also took care to align SeattleFWC26’s priorities with the local organizing committee’s role and resources.

We recognize the importance of setting bold goals while being candid about where other organizations are in the lead. SeattleFWC26 is not a part of FIFA, and we do not receive funding from FIFA. We are also not a government agency, and we do not have regulatory authority over government functions or long-term dedicated funding. As a temporary nonprofit created to prepare our region to host the FIFA World Cup and to leave a positive legacy, SeattleFWC26 must raise funds locally to advance our human rights work. 

SeattleFWC26 will continue providing summaries of our plans and actions on our human rights priorities, ending with the publication of our Getting Help & Reporting Harm Playbook in the upcoming weeks. We are excited to share the work we’re supporting, eager to use this moment of global focus to advance local priorities, and mindful that advancing human rights is ongoing work in which local organizations need our community’s support, both in the lead-up to big events and consistently over the long term.

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