Human Trafficking in [Canada Street Children in [Canada] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Canada] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Canada [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] Canada is a source, transit, and
destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes
of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women and children are
trafficked primarily from Asia and Eastern Europe for sexual exploitation,
but victims from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean also have been
identified in Canada. Many trafficking victims are from Thailand, Cambodia,
Malaysia, Vietnam, and South Korea, in addition to Russia and Ukraine. Asian
victims tend to be trafficked more frequently to Vancouver and Western
Canada, while Eastern European and Latin American victims are trafficked more
often to Toronto and Eastern Canada. A significant number of victims,
particularly South Korean females, are trafficked through Canada to the
United States. Canada is a source country for sex tourism, and NGOs report
that Canada is also a destination country, particularly for sex tourists from
the United States. Canadian girls and women, many of whom are aboriginal, are
trafficked internally for commercial sexual exploitation. NGOs report that
Canada is a destination for foreign victims trafficked for labor
exploitation; many of these victims enter Canada legally but then are
unlawfully exploited in agriculture and domestic servitude. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country
report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Aboriginal women fair game for predators amid public indifference Untold scores of society's most
vulnerable members - young native women - have gone missing across the
country only to be forsaken by a jaded justice system and neglectful media.
The death and disappearance of aboriginal women has emerged as an alarming
nationwide pattern, from western serial murders to little-known Atlantic
vanishings. Grim statistics and anecdotal evidence compiled by The Canadian
Press suggest public apathy has allowed predators to stalk native victims
with near impunity. Human
trafficking in Vancouver Women become trapped in sex trade
after being lured to city with false promises. Imagine being beaten, forced into sex work,
and told you’ll be killed if you try to escape. The constant threat of
violence means you’re too scared to go to the authorities, but even if you
did, there’s little chance of retribution for your attacker. This might sound like something that would
happen in a third-world country, or during some bygone era, but it’s
happening now in Vancouver, and is a reality for many victims of human
trafficking. “I can’t understand why Canada
hasn’t successfully prosecuted a single person for human trafficking when you
look at other countries like the U.S., Australia, and the U.K.,” says Perrin.
“We’ve made the same commitments and been to the same conferences, but Canada
has been all talk and no action. We’re just beginning to turn the corner;
we’re where other countries we consider ourselves in the same league as were
10 years ago. We’ve had a decade of inaction on this and it’s allowed
traffickers to profit; we need to make it more risky and less profitable for
them.” ***
ARCHIVES *** Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS –
Thousands of persons entered the country illegally over the last decade.
These persons came primarily from East Asia (particularly China and Korea,
but also Malaysia), Central and South Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, Latin
America and the Caribbean (including Mexico, Honduras, and Haiti), and South
Africa. Many of these illegal immigrants paid large sums to be smuggled to
the country, were indentured to their traffickers upon arrival, worked at
lower than minimum wage, and used most of their salaries to pay down their
debt at usurious interest rates. The traffickers used violence to ensure that
their clients paid and that they did not inform the police. Asian women and
girls who were smuggled into the country often were forced into prostitution.
Traffickers used intimidation and violence, as well as the illegal
immigrants' inability to speak English, to keep victims from running away or
informing the police. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2003 [52] The Committee is also
concerned about the increase of foreign children and women trafficked into
Canada. [53] The Committee recommends … Human-trafficking
charges dropped The couple's lawyer, Frank Pappas,
said "even Inspector Clouseau" could have
done a better investigation than the RCMP, who
didn't interview the couple's neighbours, or the
clerk at the depanneur where the domestic bought
phone cards to call overseas.
"Had the RCMP investigated properly
from the outset, they would have realized that her assertion ... that she was
a prisoner was completely false," Pappas said. "Even Ray Charles
could have seen it." But Pappas said the whole thing
was a scam in order for Manaye to avoid
deportation. Social
networking sites used for human-trafficking - Hundreds of Albertans get
targeted each year They do most of their recruiting
on social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace, choosing naïve or vulnerable victims for
“grooming” who are right around 18 years old in order to avoid detection by
authorities looking for predators after underage kids. After four or five dizzyingly
spectacular dates, the predator will invite her to a private party. She will be gang-raped and
subjected to unspeakable humiliation. She might be drugged. “Her ‘boyfriend’ will tell her what’s
expected of her,” Galvin said. “She’s told the event will occur anyways. She
can either fight or submit to it, but it’s going to happen.” She will be threatened with death if she
goes to police. Her family might also be threatened. Human
trafficking an issue in Canada Human-trafficking is not issue
that gets a lot of attention in Alberta simply because most people think it's
an international issue with international victims, Trompetter
said. But it happens more often than
people think, she said. "We have national trafficking of Canadian women,
especially in the aboriginal communities. In the prairie provinces, there is
a lot of activity going on. Girls are being recruited on reserves and brought
into the big urban centres like Winnipeg,
Saskatoon, Regina, Edmonton and Calgary to work in prostitution." A study by the federal standing committee
on the status of women last February found aboriginal females are at greater
risk of becoming victims of trafficking.
Erin Wolski, of the Native Women's
Association of Canada, told the committee aboriginal females are
"extremely vulnerable." Human
trafficking in Vancouver Women become trapped in sex trade
after being lured to city with false promises
Imagine being beaten, forced into sex work, and told you’ll be killed
if you try to escape. The constant threat of violence means you’re too scared
to go to the authorities, but even if you did, there’s little chance of
retribution for your attacker. This
might sound like something that would happen in a third-world country, or
during some bygone era, but it’s happening now in Vancouver, and is a reality
for many victims of human trafficking. “I can’t understand why Canada
hasn’t successfully prosecuted a single person for human trafficking when you
look at other countries like the U.S., Australia, and the U.K.,” says Perrin.
“We’ve made the same commitments and been to the same conferences, but Canada
has been all talk and no action. We’re just beginning to turn the corner;
we’re where other countries we consider ourselves in the same league as were
10 years ago. We’ve had a decade of inaction on this and it’s allowed
traffickers to profit; we need to make it more risky and less profitable for
them.” Reforming
Canada’s Record on Human Trafficking A young woman answers a job ad
that offers a prepaid air ticket and glamorous work as an international
model. She leaves home -- perhaps from a city in Eastern Europe or Southeast
Asia. Upon arriving in Canada, she
discovers to her horror that she has been lured into the sex trade and faces
“debts” that she must now pay off. Somehow she escapes her captors and looks
for help. The authorities detain, interrogate and then deport her. Until recently, this was how Canada
routinely treated human trafficking victims -- as illegal migrants, says
Benjamin Perrin, an assistant professor who joined the UBC
Faculty of Law in August. Organized Crime and Human Trafficking in Canada: Tracing Perceptions and Discourses [PDF] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - The review of the cases reveals
that, in spite of the judiciaries’ implicit acceptance of the official and
counter discourse vis-à-vis the trafficking of women for the purposes of
prostitution by organized crime, judgments are, for the most part, marked by
a lack of sensitivity to the cultural, economic and social reality of
undocumented migrant workers generally and to the reality of exploitation,
violence and stigma experienced by sex trade workers more specifically.
Moreover the documents are interpreted in a manner that renders the majority
of claimants outside the discourse and hence not entitled to the
consideration afforded ‘victims’. In particular the extrajudicial and
potentially moral question of whether the women knew they would be working in
the sex trade is rendered significant. It would appear that embedded in the
sex slave/sex worker dichotomy is another dualism – innocent/culpable.
Therefore women who are unaware that they will participate in the trade are
potentially protected while women who experience severe labour
abuse are held accountable for their situation regardless of the exploitation
they may experience. In short the ‘sex slave’ discourse may operate against
the interests of many irregular migrant sex trade workers by obscuring their
exploitation at the same time as it renders exploitation the defining
characteristic of others. Canada's
New Government Strengthens Protection for Victims of Human Trafficking The Honourable
Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, today introduced new
measures to help assist victims of human trafficking brought into Canada from
abroad. The new measures extend the
length of the temporary resident permit (TRP) for
victims of human trafficking to 180 days, up from 120. This extension also
allows victims to apply for a work permit - an option not previously
available. The new measures will also
continue to allow victims of human trafficking to receive health-care benefits,
including medical treatment and counselling
services, under the Interim Federal Health Program. F1
fuels human trafficking, activists say Last year, Canada was singled out
in an international study for failing to meet its obligations for the
protection of victims of human trafficking. The 40-page study, titled Falling Short of the Mark: An
International Study on the Treatment of Human Trafficking Victims,
concluded that out of the countries evaluated - Australia, Canada, Germany,
Italy, Norway, Sweden, Britain and the United States - only Canada and Britain failed to meet
their obligations to protect victims under the United Nations Trafficking
Protocol and international best practices. Falling Short
of the Mark: An International Study on the Treatment of Human Trafficking
Victims [PDF] CANADA - Canada has systematically failed
to comply with its international obligations under the Trafficking Protocol
for the protection of victims of human trafficking. There is no evidence it has considered providing for
the protection of victims in the manner obliged under the Trafficking
Protocol. Canada.s record of dealing with
trafficking victims is an international embarrassment and contrary to best
practices. This is despite being the first jurisdiction in this Study to have
ratified the Trafficking Protocol almost four years ago on May 13, 2002.
Canada has ignored calls for reform and continues to re-traumatize
trafficking victims, with few exceptions, by subjecting them to routine
deportation and fails to provide even basic support services. The situation in Canada is so bad,
with respect to a failure to provide basic support to trafficking victims,
that individual law enforcement officers are attempting to approach local
hospitals and NGOs to cobble together funding to provide the most basic
medical assistance for these victims in major Canadian cities. Winnipeg
police to draft human trafficking policy The average model is 14 years old,
the Winnipeg-based Crawford said, and some of them are vulnerable to abuse by
recruiters, agents and photographers. Crawford says she has seen or
heard of girls being raped, used as prostitutes or sent to work in
bars. Ewatski
acknowledged that human trafficking as a crime has come to Winnipeg, although
not to the same extent as larger centres such as
Vancouver and Montreal. MP
calls for action to combat human trafficking Smith explained that women from other
countries are promised a better life in Canada, and once they are brought
here their documents are taken away and they are forced into the sex trade.
The same is true, Smith said, for Canadian women who have pursued modelling careers abroad. Human-trafficking
bill introduced A Canadian teenager signs up for a
modelling program and, unbeknownst to her parents,
is forced to have sex with strangers while travelling
in Europe. A Mexican woman is smuggled into Canada illegally, and turns
tricks against her will above a downtown Toronto drugstore. The RCMP estimates that 800-1,200 people in Canada, the vast
majority of them women, are victims of human trafficking each year, but
non-governmental organizations peg the number in the thousands. Local
Sex Crime Conference Focuses On Human Trafficking And the crime that so often
happens in the background is more present than any of us would like to think.
Numbers from the Mounties suggest between 600-800 people are
'trafficked' to Canada every year.
Many of those being victimized are prime targets for the despicable
entrepreneurs - young women from third-world countries that have high
rates of poverty, violence, illiteracy and political and economic instability. But it's not just the more stereotyped
"sex slaves" that you often read about. While that's number one on
the list, the vulnerable can also become prisoners of domestic servitude, the
farming and fishing industry and sweat shops. Human
trafficking not just a big city problem: RCMP Human trafficking is becoming a
bigger concern all the time, he said, and it often involves forcing people
into the sex trade or making farm workers and nannies work long hours for
little money. MacIver
said it's not talked about much in small towns, so people may think it
doesn't exist. "They are not
aware of it and not educated about it," he said. According to the RCMP, between
800 and 1,200 people are victims of human trafficking in Canada each year,
most working in forced labour or the illegal sex
trade. Human
trafficking victims face immigration barriers Hundreds of children, men and
women believed to be bought and sold in Canada every year in what
amounts to a life of slavery face large hurdles to stay in the
country legally once they escape their captors. Conservative RCMP
estimates show that between 800 and 1,200 people are victims of human
trafficking in Canada each year, with most ending up working in forced labour or the illegal sex trade. University
College of the Fraser Valley expert testifies "We have to create an
environment in which it is safe for victims to come forward and seek
help," he said, keeping in mind that they are "seriously at risk of
reprisal or intimidation" from their captors here in Canada while their
families face "terrorism" back in their homeland. Successful human traffickers have
become adept at using various simple but very effective methods of
psychological control over their victims," Dandurand
said. "They know how to break a victim's self-confidence and
self-efficacy, crush their hopes, and condition them to resign themselves to
a life of exploitation in which they are trapped." Border
guards uncover human trafficking network Six Korean women, who were
potential victims of human trafficking, have returned to Korea after they
were discovered hiding in a bush at the Osoyoos
border crossing. Human
Trafficking Could be Huge Issue During 2010 Olympics Typically, traffickers lure women
with promises of jobs that will supposedly pay them many times what they
would earn in their home country. But
the reality is they’re forced to work as prostitutes in massage parlours and must repay thousands of dollars in debt for
living expenses and forged passports.
Non-governmental organizations say women are sometimes kidnapped,
beaten and drugged before being brought to Canada for an industry that
involves low risk and high profits for the traffickers. Government and police officials are aware
of the problem and concerned about the potential the Games pose for
traffickers. HEADLINES - HUMAN TRAFFICKING:
CANADA TO ASSIST VICTIMS - [scroll down to the story] The Future Group, a Canadian NGO, said in March that Ottawa did a terrible job of helping human trafficking victims and usually deported them. Immigration Minister Monte Solberg, who said the report "was a wake-up call", said victims would be given temporary residence permits valid for 120 days and were eligible for health-care benefits. At the end of that period they could either return to their home country or apply for another permit valid for up to five years. New government
revisits visas for exotic dancers The new application stipulates
changes to the employment contracts, making work in Canada safer for foreign
women than before. Some changes include: longer employment contracts (one
year rather than the former three months), 30 guaranteed hours of work per
week, dancers keep all gratuities and tips, no physical contact between the
dancer and patron, the employer must assist the employee with applying for
public health care and insurance coverages, and the
employer must also pay for transportation from and to the dancer's home
country. Canada an
“International Embarrassment” on Sex Trafficking Canada and the United Kingdom have
been singled out in an international study for failing to meet their
obligations for the protection of victims of human trafficking, while other
developed countries received praise for their efforts. Of the countries evaluated:
Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the
United States, only Canada and the UK failed to meet their obligations to
protect victims under the United Nations Trafficking Protocol and international
best practices. Child-sex ring uncovered in Winnipeg, police allege Sgt. Kelly Dennison said about 20
girls – aged 12 to 17 – were sold into prostitution. Dennison said the other children younger
than age 12, including a baby of only 18 months, weren't necessarily forced
to perform sexual acts but may have been exposed to them because they lived
in the houses where they were taking place. MP tears strip off
Liberals, Feds continue to allow exploitation, Tory says Diane Ablonczy
accused the government of misleading Canadians last year when it claimed to
be "canceling" the controversial policy of issuing temporary work
permits to exotic dancers based on a labor market opinion from the Human
Resources department. But the
"sordid truth" is that the welcome mat is still rolled out to
foreign strippers, she told the House, citing a Sun story over the weekend. Aboriginal
women fair game for predators amid public indifference Untold scores of society's most
vulnerable members - young native women - have gone missing across the
country only to be forsaken by a jaded justice system and neglectful media.
The death and disappearance of aboriginal women has emerged as an alarming
nationwide pattern, from western serial murders to little-known Atlantic
vanishings. Grim statistics and anecdotal evidence compiled by The Canadian
Press suggest public apathy has allowed predators to stalk native victims
with near impunity. Human
trafficking charges laid in B.C. A man in The
Protection Project - Canada [DOC] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - Most of the Chinese, Korean,
Malaysian, and Thai women found in raids on brothels, massage parlors, and
karaoke bars across the country have told police that an agent in their home
countries charged them for transportation to Canada and for job placement.
Some agents demanded payment in advance, while others agreed to be repaid
once the girls were working in Canada. The agents then sold them to bar and
brothel owners for prices ranging from Cdn$7,500 to Cdn$15,000. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 1 Civil Liberties: 1 Status: Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Hundreds
of foreigners lured in sex trade: RCMP At least 600 foreign women and
girls are coerced into joining the Canadian sex trade each year by human
traffickers, says a newly declassified RCMP
report. As many as 2,200 other
newcomers are smuggled into the United States from Canada to toil in
brothels, sweatshops, domestic jobs or construction work, estimates the
intelligence assessment obtained by The Canadian Press. And the RCMP says
the numbers may represent just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, as it is
widely believed only one in 10 victims of trafficking report the crime to
police. Washington
state a hotbed for human trafficking, report says A new report says Washington state
is a hotbed for what many say is a modern form of slavery: human trafficking,
the recruitment, transportation and sale of people for labor. The state's international border with
Canada, its many ports, rural areas and dependency on agricultural workers
make Washington prone to such exploitation, according to the report. "It is such a hideous crime because
it's really slavery," said Bev Emery, who
manages the state's Office of Crime Victims Advocacy. "It's looking at
and treating human beings as though they are a commodity to be bought and sold." S.F.
parlor hit in crackdown on sex slave trade The two later told investigators
they had been smuggled from Canada into the United States in May and taken
directly to King's, where one of the managers allegedly paid $32,000 to the
person who had transported them. The two women said they briefly
escaped in August, but were soon found by the manager and two other workers,
returned to King's and beaten. Trafficking in Persons http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/fs/ht/links.html LINKS·
Research / Academic ·
Canadian non-governmental organisations ·
Intergovernmental organisations and
initiatives ·
International non-governmental organisations
·
Federal departments and agencies members of the Interdepartmental
Working Group on Trafficking in Persons (IWGTIP) Helping
Honduran Children Return Home With support from the Human
Security Program, the International Organization for Migration and Covenant
House (Casa Alianza) have begun a pilot project
that aims to repatriate and re-integrate Honduran street children who have
been trafficked to Canada and the United States. Embattled
minister promises changes to exotic dancer rules "When you talk to the women
who are so desperate for a way out of [their] countries they say, 'Please
keep this program because it does provide us with an opportunity – as much as
we may not like it or approve of it – a chance of a better life.'" Sgro says once
the women get to Canada they often run into problems. "They don't have a
lot of language skills and they're ripe for exploitation." Canada Abruptly
Ends Special Visas for Exotic Dancers after Inquiries into Underage Strippers Today in the House of Commons,
Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan announced an
abrupt end to the Canadian scheme of arranging visas specifically for exotic
dancers, or strippers, which are used to fill positions at strip clubs in
Canada. Those clubs, it has been acknowledged even by club owners, are
notorious for forced back-room prostitution work. U.S., Canadian and Mexican Representatives Meet to Combat Sexual Exploitation Other newly released information from the Penn study shows that Canada is an easy gateway into the U.S. for sexually exploited children from China, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Central and Eastern Europe. "Due to relaxed border controls between the U.S. and Canada," Estes said, " trafficked children are able to be moved with comparative ease and meet with little or no official interference." This report analyses the legal
framework governing the hiring of immigrant live-in caregivers and the legal
status of mail-order brides who immigrate to Canada with a spousal or fiancée
visa. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [Canada Street Children in [Canada] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Canada] [other countries]