Here’s how bp combats human trafficking
By partnering with non-profit organizations, the company trains its workforce to keep people safe
Charles Bernsen noticed something amiss while working at a Petro travel center in Florence, South Carolina, where he served as the site’s general manager. A distressed young woman was lingering inside the store, occasionally disappearing into the restrooms – a sign to him that something was wrong.
Bernsen asked the woman, Nikki, if she needed help. She told him she had escaped a man who was holding her captive in a hotel down the street, selling her for sex.
Bernsen offered Nikki food, clothing and a blanket, and made sure she was safe. He called the National Human Trafficking Hotline, and bought her a bus ticket home.
Nikki is among the approximately 17,000 people in the US who, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, are victims of sex trafficking each year. Truck stops and convenience stores can be a beacon of light for victims of trafficking, with bright lights, security cameras and, in many cases, staff trained to spot the signs of trafficking.
That’s why bp, which owns TravelCenters of America and the Petro brands, has partnered with TAT – formerly known as Truckers Against Trafficking. The organization works with travel center and truck stop team members as well as professional drivers across the country to educate them on how to spot warning signs of human trafficking – including disorientation, timid behavior, bruising, and controlled communication.* Since TAT was founded in 2009, it has trained more than 2 million people.
TravelCenters of America’s network offers more than a typical convenience store. With more than 300 sites along highways in 44 states, it’s one of the nation’s largest networks of travel centers. They average around 25 acres and offer a full range of amenities for trucks and fleets, including full-service restaurants, truck maintenance and more.
Travel centers are not the only place where bp partners to combat human trafficking, but also in our network of convenience stores. About 160 million Americans, roughly half the country’s population, purchase something from a convenience store every day, making them an essential service. Customers range from families on summer road trips stopping for fuel and a snack, to someone picking up a bag of ice on the way home from work. For people in rural areas, the sites are sometimes the most accessible place to buy grocery items and other products or services.
Convenience stores are also critical to bp’s operations in the US. In fact, every major bp business is represented in the US, and the company has more than 30,000 employees here. Across bp’s family of brands, the company serves more than 3 million customers at more than 8,000 retail sites across 46 states. Some of its brands – which also include Amoco, Thorntons and ampm – have been trusted by Americans for more than 100 years.
Safety is top-of-mind at bp, and training employees to spot the signs of human trafficking isn't the only part of the company's work. bp has a longstanding relationship with In Our Backyard, a non-profit organization. The company sponsors the organization's annual efforts to help locate missing or trafficked women and children ahead of Super Bowl weekend, when human trafficking cases tend to significantly increase.
During the week leading up to the Big Game, In Our Backyard works with community volunteers to hand out 10,000 bp and TA sponsored booklets with photos of missing women and children in the surrounding host city who are at risk of human trafficking. In 2025, these books were distributed at convenience and corner stores in the New Orleans area, equipping site staff with the tools to recognize and report signs of human trafficking. Fifteen of the missing children in the book were reported recovered within one week of the game along with one missing adult.
In Our Backyard and bp work to make the non-profit's Freedom Stickers available to bp’s branded sites that are owned and operated by others. The owners then post the stickers in the restrooms at their locations. Those stickers help bring awareness to human trafficking and, quite visibly, post the phone number for the National Human Trafficking Hotline. Last year, bp drove a community pump program in which the company’s branded marketers covered entire gas pumps in the In Our Backyard Freedom Stickers.
“As bp invests in America to provide the energy people need every day, we must do it safely – for our employees, our customers and the people who live in communities alongside our sites,” Boffa says, adding: “This extends to our efforts to combat human trafficking.”
*Learn more about how to spot the warning signs of human trafficking at www.dhs.gov.
