Highway of horrors, not heroes
The world of sexual trafficking for most of us is one dimension of reality away
What the public doesn’t know, is that this is happening right under our noses.
Early in February, a report was making the media rounds regarding an Alaskan Airlines flight attendant who intervened in a human trafficking situation by being able to identify red flags concerning a man and young woman travelling together that raised her suspicions. It was a story with a happy ending; the much older man was arrested and the much younger woman was connected with social service agencies. That was in 2011. In the years since, the flight attendant has trained other flight attendants on what to look for in identifying a potential trafficking situation.
I’ve written before about the women’s health conference I attended in September hosted in Hamilton by the Federation of Medical Women of Canada. I said I’d write about other topics. This is one of them. Wendy Lever, a retired detective with the Toronto Police Service, gave a sobering presentation on sexual human trafficking and it was eye-opening.
She began with an overview of the prostitution law in Canada, Bill C-36 and its legal implications for sex workers before she went on to describe the extent and scope of domestic human trafficking in Canada and its impact on families and communities. Lever noted that Ontario is the top receiving region in Canada; 65 per cent of the human trafficking cases reported are from Ontario with Toronto identified as a major destination or transit point in both domestic and international trafficking.
The majority of trafficked victims are forced to provide sexual services in hotels/ motels, private residences and in adult entertainment clubs. What Lever wanted to stress, and what the public doesn’t know, is that this is happening right under our noses, most notably in the motels and hotels along the 401 highway. The so-called Highway of Heroes, she said, is really, for some women a Highway of Horrors.
Most surprising for me was that the victims are typically female Caucasian Canadian citizens. I had always assumed that sex trafficking came into the country from outside: Eastern Europe, Thailand and the sex industry of South Asia, Mexico. But, Nope. It’s Canadian girls between the ages of 13-22 from all economic and family situations. What comes as no surprise is the overrepresentation of Aboriginal women and girls in the numbers, another indicator of their vulnerable and marginalized status in our communities. Victims are recruited from everywhere: schools, malls, groups homes, the Internet — a lot from the Internet — fast food restaurants, bus stops, etc. Everywhere girls and young women hang out.
Lever outlined the four stages of domestic human trafficking: luring, grooming, manipulation, and coercion. It’s a path traffickers pull their victims along, inexorably, until they can’t get off. Abuse indicators include unexplained bruises, cuts, broken bones, black eye(s), grey marks on her skin, tattooing or branding symbols and cigarette burns on the body. It is rare for a woman to break free by leaving and returning to her old life. A counselled exit, where an outreach worker makes contact, establishes a relationship and is there when the victim decides to leave is the most effective method. Victims say they did not know how to get help, didn’t trust the police, bonded with the trafficker, felt stuck and overall, felt shame about their situation.
In 2012, Canada adopted a National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking that proposes strategies that will better support organizations providing assistance to victims. The plan lists a number of activities and initiatives undertaken since 2012 designed to combat human trafficking, from promoting online training tools to enhancing intelligence coordination to changing legislation to target traffickers and protect victims and survivors. Much of the federal governments efforts are in disseminating information that raises our awareness of trafficking and its effects. It begins with information, knowing what trafficking is, who is vulnerable and how to stop it.
At the end of February, the Ontario government introduced two pieces of legislation regarding human trafficking: the Prevention of and Remedies for Human Trafficking Act, 2017 and the Human Trafficking Awareness Day Act, 2017. If passed, the first one will establish a process whereby survivors and those at risk of being trafficked can obtain a human trafficking-specific restraining order and will also allow survivors to sue their traffickers in civil court. The second is self-evident: the establishment of a day of awareness on Feb. 22 each year.
The world of sexual trafficking for most of us is one dimension of reality away; it’s happening all around us, we just don’t see it. Maybe we just don’t want to? More shame on us for looking away.