ATLANTA — As the months tick down to the FIFA World Cup 2026 arrival in Atlanta, city leaders revealed their plan for combating human trafficking and assisting the diverse communities living there.
Calling it the ATL26 Human Rights Action Plan, officials said it is “guided by a core principle: the FIFA World Cup 2026 should happen with Atlanta, and not to Atlanta.”
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Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said the plan is meant to support the city’s values while honoring civil rights leaders.
“Atlanta has a legacy of leading the conscience of the nation for civil and human rights,” Dickens said in a statement. “The ATL26 Human Rights Action Plan reflects the city’s values and decades of the unforgotten voices of the greatest civil rights leaders in history who called Atlanta home.”
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City officials said there are four pillars for addressing “the full spectrum of human rights” while hosting such a large “mega-event.”
The city said the pillars are:
- Inclusion and Safeguarding: Protecting vulnerable populations, advancing child safety, supporting unsheltered residents, preventing human trafficking, ensuring accessibility for people with disabilities, expanding language access, upholding the right to peaceful assembly, safeguarding data privacy and digital rights, and mitigating adverse environmental impacts.
- Workers’ Rights: Ensuring fair wages, safe workplaces, freedom of association, wage theft prevention, small business readiness, and workforce development—with a $17.50/hour minimum wage as the baseline for all FIFA-related employment coordinated by the City.
- Access to Remedy: Establishing a unified grievance reporting portal with FIFA, strengthening the Human Relations Commission as the City’s primary anti-discrimination mechanism, and ensuring multilingual access to complaint systems.
- Accountability and Monitoring: Defining measurable metrics for every Legacy Impact Initiative, committing to quarterly public progress reports, and publishing a comprehensive Post-Games Human Rights Impact Report within six months of the tournament’s conclusion.
To make that happen, while still supporting long-term city needs and priorities, officials said development included:
- 75+ hours of community engagement
- 25+ organizations participating in public Community Engagement Sessions
- A cross-functional City of Atlanta internal team, including:
- Mayor’s Office of One Atlanta
- Mayor’s Office of Violence Reduction
- Mayor’s Office of International and Immigrant Affairs
- Department of Emergency Preparedness
- Department of Innovation and Performance
- Members of the City’s Strategy & Operations teams
- Atlanta Department of Labor and Employment Services
- Every initiative is designed to protect, include, and create lasting benefit for the communities that call this city home—before, during, and long after the tournament ends.
For more information on the plan, city officials have published an Executive Summary and the plan’s full details.
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