War on human trafficking fraught with complications

Canada’s $ 25- million national strategy targets dark, lucrative industry in face of overwhelming challenges

An estimated 15,000 people are trafficked into Canada each year. Most are women and children and most end up in the sex trade.

At least that number of Canadians are also likely to be under the control of domestic traffickers who move them about the country.

Again, most are commercially, sexually exploited.

But some victims are in forced labour working in agriculture, processing and manufacturing.

On Wednesday, the Canadian government committed $ 25 million over the next four years to a coordinated national strategy to deal with the traffickers and their victims.

For years, the U. S. State Department’s annual

Trafficking in Persons reports have criticized Canada for its failure to have a coordinated, comprehensive plan to prevent trafficking, prosecute traffickers and protect victims, even though traffickers use Canada as a source of victims, a transit country and a destination.

The reports also consistently pointed to the lack of communication among RCMP, Canada Border Services, and provincial, regional and local police even though everyone acknowledges that human trafficking is not only highly organized crime, it’s lucrative crime.

Pimps can buy a person from a trafficker for as little as $ 5,000. Over a year, each prostituted man, woman or child can then earn them about $ 280,000.

The $ 25 million for Canada’s national anti- trafficking strategy will be used to set up an integrated law enforcement team, train police, prosecutors and the public to recognized trafficked victims. It will also provide more services

for trafficked victims and better coordination with domestic and international partners, including non- governmental organizations.

Of the $ 7.3 million allocated for this year, more than $ 5 million will go to an integrated enforcement team, the RCMP’s human trafficking national coordination centre and into the foreign affairs budget for work done overseas.

Another $ 2.2 million is earmarked for education and training.

Up until seven years ago, human trafficking wasn’t even considered a crime. As a result, many front- line responders don’t readily recognize victims if they come across them.

Since 2005, Canada has had few convictions — 25 involving 41 victims. Of those convictions, 90 per cent are related to the trafficking of Canadians, not foreigners. Another 59 cases are before the courts, including several in B. C., that involve 85 accused and 136 victims.

The national strategy was short on details. It has yet to be determined, for example, where the integrated investigative team composed of RCMP, border service officers and local police will be based.

There’s no detail on how the $ 500,000 a year allocated for victims’ services starting in 2013- 14 will be allocated. It’s not clear, for example, whether it will be used to pay the costs of foreign victims who choose to stay in Canada on 180- day temporary residence visas and receive medical care – neither of which is contingent on them testifying – or whether some might be used for detox and drug- addiction programs for those willing to testify or safe housing.

The Salvation Army, for example, has designated beds for female trafficking victims who are drug- free. It has no detox facilities, which means trafficking victims join the long queue for detox beds, which are sadly lacking in Vancouver and across the country.

“It’s like eating an elephant with a spoon,” Conservative MP Joy Smith said Wednesday after she couldn’t provide an answer to yet- another question at a Surrey news conference about details. It was her way of saying how complicated all of this is.

And she’s not one to give in to complications. The Winnipeg-area MP is the author of two private member’s bills related to trafficking. The first calling for a mandatory minimum sentence for child trafficking has been enacted. The second, which would allow Canada to prosecute citizens for trafficking offences committed abroad, is in the Senate.

Beyond the broad- brush strokes of prevention, protection, prosecution and building partnerships, everything about stopping human traffickers is complicated by borders ( domestic and international), areas of jurisdiction and the usual stuff of other kinds of prosecutions.

And while enslaving unwilling women and girls in the sex

trade or forcing men, women and children to labour against their will is anathema to most Canadians, there is an even more fundamental complication to this national plan.

What drives human trafficking worldwide is the demand for prostitutes and Canada’s prostitution laws are in flux.

In March, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a lower- court ruling that struck down sections of Canada’s prostitution laws because they deny the right to free choice and security of person.

Canada plans to appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada.

So, what if Canada’s top court agrees that prostitution is a job choice, not coercion, and that brothels are legal?

It’s a question Smith was asked and avoided altogether.

Yet it’s hard to imagine any strategy or any amount of money would be enough to curb human traffickers.