Families involved in sex trafficking of aboriginal women and girls
Government commissions new study of emerging problem
Family members are increasingly involved in the domestic human trafficking of aboriginal women and girls for the purposes of sexual exploitation, according to Public Safety Canada.
The assessment appears in a tender for research into trends and issues in the trafficking of aboriginal women and girls. It says the involvement of both family members and criminal organizations is an emerging trend that “appears to be a significant complicating factor” in their exploitation.
The research is intended to increase understanding of the trafficking of aboriginal women and girls in Canada. It will include at least 70 discussions with people who provide services to trafficked aboriginal women and girls or vulnerable communities, those who have studied the issue and people investigating or prosecuting crimes involving trafficked female aboriginals.
Public Safety wants the researchers to describe the extent and situations in which family members are involved in victimizing their relatives, clarify the relationship between
‘I listened to some families where, because of their addiction to drugs and drinking, every two weeks they were trafficking their own children.’
MICHÈLE AUDETTE President, Native Women’s Association of Canada
human trafficking and domestic violence, and outline how gangs and criminal organizations are involved, with a focus on the trafficking of family members.
Experts agreed Monday that family members are involved in the trafficking of their own relatives in Canada, though it remains relatively uncommon.
Michèle Audette, president of the Ottawa-based Native Women’s Association of Canada, said she has heard stories from aboriginal parents who sold their own children for sex to pay for their addictions.
“I listened to some families where, because of their addiction to drugs and drinking, every two weeks they were trafficking their own children,” she said. “I was so shocked.
“It’s a small number, but it’s there. Because of that, we cannot stay quiet or deny this reality doesn’t exist in our First Nations communities.”
The Canadian Women’s Foundation is funding a national task force on sex trafficking of girls and young women in Canada that has met with more than 150 organizations and spoken to 50 female survivors of sex trafficking.
Sandra Diaz, a member of the task force’s staff team, said gangs and organized crime “are definitely at the helm of this enormous and serious issue that’s happening right here in Canada.”
The role that family members play, she said, is not fully understood. “We haven’t seen that there is an epidemic of families trafficking their daughters in Canada.” The task force looks forward to seeing the results of the Public Safety research “to get a sense of how big a percentage that is,” she said.
“There’s an enormous need for more research. We don’t have data. It doesn’t exist in a way that is comprehensive and deep. So any research is good research.”
Joy Smith, MP for the Manitoba riding of Kildonan-St. Paul, has worked tirelessly on the human trafficking issue for more than a decade, and entered politics because of her concern about it.
She said people are more likely to sexually exploit members of their own family than they are to traffic them for payment. But she has encountered examples of familial trafficking by both aboriginals and nonaboriginals.
One Caucasian girl she worked with this summer was trafficked and sold for sex by her father. “Then her cousin got involved,” Smith said grimly.
The same thing happens sometimes in aboriginal circles, she said. “One of the saddest cases I have seen was a young boy who was trafficked by his dad across Canada when he was eight years old for sexual services. The dad serviced his addictions from that.”
A 2009 study of the trafficking of aboriginal women and girls in Canada by Anette Sikka, then an LL. D candidate at the University of Ottawa, said participants indicated that many girls entered the sex trade through familial or peer relationships.
Many “spoke of sisters coercing or forcing younger siblings into the sex trade to make money,” Sikka’s study says. Young girls command higher payments than older girls, it notes. “Many older women are unable to survive through their sex trade earnings, and thus engage younger family members into the trade.”
Even when gangs are involved, girls in some First Nations communities “are related to members of gangs in the urban centres,” participants in Sikka’s study told her.
Though media attention has focused on human trafficking involving people from other countries coming to Canada, most trafficking is domestic, and almost all involves sexual exploitation.
According to the RCMP’s Human Trafficking National Co-ordination Centre in Ottawa, as of this June, prosecutors had secured convictions against 69 individuals in 45 cases involving human trafficking since 2005. More than 90 per cent involved trafficking of people already in Canada.
“It is in many ways big business for gangs or organized crime,” said Diaz. “Studies show traffickers in Canada can receive an annual financial gain of $280,000 for each woman or girl they’ve trafficked or sexually exploited.
“Many members of the Canadian public are unaware of how serious and significant the issue of trafficking of women and girls is here in Canada,” she said, adding that better understanding was “critically important.”
Smith described human trafficking as “one of the biggest businesses, the biggest sources of money, for criminals. It’s alive and well here, and the predators are making lots of money.”
Last year, the federal government announced a national action plan to combat human trafficking and is investing $6 million a year in the effort. But Smith said more needs to be done. In particular, front line services should be expanded, she said.