How Can C-Stores Fight Human Trafficking?

A recent NACS webinar explored how collaboration, training and awareness are essential in the fight against trafficking.

September 29, 2025

Everyone can make a difference in the fight against human trafficking. Convenience stores are uniquely positioned to reach up to 8 million people every day through bathroom messaging, which is a critical place for those who are trafficked to be alone for a moment.

“We want everyone to know what the truth looks like around human trafficking,” said Cheryl Csiky, executive director of In Our Backyard, a nonprofit organization working to fight human trafficking, during the recent NACS Webinar Recognizing Human Trafficking in Your Stores.

Human trafficking relies on inaction by bystanders, and collaboration, training and awareness are essential in the fight against trafficking.

In Our Backyard offers a Convenience Stores Against Trafficking (CSAT) program, which equips convenience stores with free training on human trafficking for their employees and provides materials to post in stores. 

Convenience store Freedom Stickers (Freedom Stickers display the National Human Trafficking hotline) raise awareness to over 4 million people every single day. More than 50,000 convenience stores, 17 state-based convenience store associations and 184 convenience store companies have partnered with CSAT. More than 1 million Freedom Stickers have been ordered over the past decade.

“Our bottom line is to have our Freedom Stickers hotline [posted] in every public restroom. We’re all in this together,” Csiky said.

Watch the entire Recognizing Human Trafficking in Your Stores webinar and learn how you can get involved here.

NACS currently works with multiple groups that fight human trafficking—including DHS, National Safe Place Network, Truckers Against Trafficking, In Our Backyard/Convenience Stores Against Trafficking and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Read more about how NACS has joined the fight in the March 2025 issue: “NACS Joins the Fight Against Human Trafficking.”

Csiky will also be speaking at the 2025 NACS Loss Prevention and Safety Symposium in Dallas December 3-4. Learn more about the Loss Prevention and Safety Symposium here.