Hard Rock International and Seminole Gaming on Wednesday said they will expand their educational high school program focused on preventing online luring of minors to various middle school curriculums. The effort is part of the companies’ commitment to National Human Trafficking Prevention Month and will spotlight Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, a non-profit organization.
“As owners of Hard Rock International and Seminole Gaming, with hotels and casinos on nearly every continent, the Seminole Tribe of Florida believes it has a duty to raise awareness of the MMIW crisis and actively work to combat human trafficking,” Hard Rock International Chairman and Seminole Gaming CEO Jim Allen said in a statement. “These issues are especially critical because perpetrators often target the hospitality and gaming industry. Furthermore, indigenous women face disproportionately high rates of going missing, and this statistic must be addressed and changed.”
Hard Rock will expand its Social Identity Quest educational program with Protecting All Children from Trafficking, a non-profit organization, to middle schools after reaching 1.2 million high school students in the United States and more than 60,000 high school students in Mexico. The expansion will help pre-teens navigate the dangers of potential online predators through a new version that features interactive game scenarios—such as ‘Virtual Identity Quest,’ ‘Healthy Relationships Quest’ and ‘To Text or Not to Text Quest’ — each with different outcomes using a points system to reward the safest and most responsible choices.
“We are proud to work with other gaming industry leaders, nonprofit organizations and advocacy groups to implement programming that educates people of all ages about the risk for and impact of the human trafficking epidemic,” Seminole Hard Rock Support Services Senior Vice President of People & Inclusion and Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer Stephanie Piimauna said. “At Hard Rock, we set the industry standard for training protocol that every team member receives to ensure we protect our guests.”
A release stated that in 2023, the United Nations Committee on the Status of Women lauded SIQ as a leading global educational program. In 2024, the governor of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo mandated SIQ as core curriculum for students when it was released in Mexico.
On January 15, the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood will host a private screening of the short film We Ride for Her, followed by a panel discussing connections between human trafficking and Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women.
The documentary, produced by Red Sand Project, tells the experiences of Medicine Wheel Ride, an indigenous women motorcycle with a mission to honor and remember MMIW. It chronicles the group’s recent journey from Sturgis, South Dakota, site of the largest motorcycle rally in the United States each year, to raise awareness of stolen sisters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts and two-spirit relatives whose missing persons cases are often overlooked.
The panel will be moderated by Seminole Tribe of Florida member Durante Blais-Billie, with speakers including film co-director Prairie Rose Seminole (Northern Cheyenne, Arikara, and Dakota); Co-Chairwoman and Co-Founder of Medicine Wheel Ride and Navy veteran Lorna Cuny (Oglala Sioux); Molly Gochman, executive producer of We Ride for Her); PACT CEO Lori Cohen; and Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming Vice President of Global Social Responsibility Paul Pellizzari.
Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming will donate $10,000 to Medicine Wheel Ride, with 100 percent of donations directly benefiting families affected by the MMIW crisis and supporting related research.
For the third straight year, Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming will raise money to combat human trafficking through its Change for Change program. Participating casino properties will encourage guests to donate change from cash tickets to the Hard Rock Heals Foundation at select Everi & NRT kiosks. All contributions will go to the Hard Rock Heals Foundation to support PACT.
Around Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans, Seminole Gaming and Hard Rock will amplify the campaign from nonprofit organization It’s a Penalty. The partnership unites the tourism industry, athletes, sports’ governing bodies and hosting committees, local and international NGOs, governments, corporations and law enforcement to eradicate human trafficking. It’s a Penalty promotes the detrimental consequences of human trafficking, both the emotional and physical abuse for victims and survivors and in the justice system for perpetrators.
As active members of the American Gaming Association’s Anti-Human Trafficking Taskforce, Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming has seen the completion of more than 78,000 training sessions by team members at hotels and casinos since 2022.
Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming also display Twentyfour-Seven QR code stickers in 44 hotels and casinos across 13 countries to provide critical information and support to those who need it, while also deterring traffickers from targeting people on the properties.
