Invisible Chains (16 page)

On the evening of January 20, 2007, the Vancouver Police Department responded to a call about a domestic disturbance. Arriving at the address, officers found Shu-fei, a foreign woman, and discovered she was in Canada illegally. The CBSA immediately began processing
her deportation even though officials were aware that the man Shu-fei was living with had, in the words of a CIC report, “been charged with a serious sexual assault and criminal harassment of another female. He appears to use violence and cruelty as a means to control these women.” The report added, “[H]e is a dangerous man who will try to intimidate/manipulate anyone he comes into contact with.”

At the eleventh hour, after the RCMP's human trafficking awareness coordinator had determined that Shu-fei was a victim, the deportation order against her and her son was cancelled at the airport. By this time, having endured negative treatment by officials, Shu-fei simply wished to return home and therefore left Canada.

“New Beginnings”—Canadians step up to help

Fortunately, some police officers and average Canadians are stepping up to protect victims when they are identified. In Ontario, the Peel Regional Police, Vice Unit, realized that the sex trafficking victims they were encountering had specialized needs that were not being met by the typical services offered through provincial government offices and various NGOs.

In response, police officers in that region bordering Toronto launched New Beginnings, an excellent example of a local police force taking the initiative to help sex trafficking victims escape their exploiters for good, build trust with police investigators, and move on with their lives. The program relies on the goodwill of regular Canadians, who volunteer their time and skills to help sex trafficking victims become survivors. Individual citizens have supported the initiative in a number of ways:

•  Pro bono tattoo artists have helped conceal the names, street names, or symbols that traffickers have branded into their victims' skin.

•  A local dentists' clinic has provided free care to address chronic dental health issues.

•  Various individuals have helped victims regain their freedom and
self-esteem through access to housing, counselling services, and criminal injuries compensation funds. They have also assisted victims in navigating the paperwork needed to re-enrol and finish high school.

The contributions of tattoo artists may appear surprising and shocking to many unfamiliar with the tactics of domestic sex traffickers. The branding technique is similar to that used by cattle ranchers who apply red-hot irons to their animals as a means of identifying them. In the same way, tattoos identify victims as being the property of their traffickers, thereby dehumanizing them and typically marking them for life.

The New Beginnings program already has helped victims become survivors by concealing their traffickers' imprint and offering them a fresh start. At nineteen, Chelsea is finally beginning to enjoy the simple pleasures of life after having been brutally controlled and sexually exploited for four years, all for the financial gain of her trafficker, who's now in jail. Her trafficker's name, once tattooed on the back of her neck, has vanished. The police officer assigned to Chelsea's case found a tattoo artist who volunteered to conceal the unwanted name in a beautiful floral design.

“When it comes to the tattoo, I'm not ashamed of it anymore,” says Chelsea. “I'm proud of it.”

Chelsea is living proof of the positive impact that New Beginnings and similar initiatives can have on victims. With help from the program she's found work, moved into her own apartment, and gone back to school. She's finishing her high school diploma and aspires to become a social worker. But not every day is easy.

“Some days I wake up and I'm in the bathroom brushing my teeth and I look at myself and I'm really happy,” she says with a smile. “I'm blessed that I got the second chance. I'm blessed that I can go back to school. I'm blessed that I'm still alive. So yes, sometimes I'm really happy. But sometimes I'm really lonely and I'm sad and I just want someone to be there.”

Treat trafficked persons as victims, not criminals

Victims of human trafficking cannot be protected
unless they are first identified to the front-line officials and caregivers responsible for assisting them. Very few victims of human trafficking escape and “self-report,” not because they
choose
to be victims but because of the interlocking barriers erected by their traffickers.

Despite these challenges, foreign victims of human trafficking have been referred to CIC for assistance with their immigration status since the department began tracking these cases. Between May 2006 and November 2008, 41 percent of referrals of foreign victims to CIC came from police officers. The CBSA referred 20 percent, while other government departments referred 15 percent. Only 12 percent of foreign victims presented themselves, and lawyers referred just 7 percent. The remaining 5 percent of referrals originated with various agencies, including Children's Aid Societies and an NGO. Remarkably, only one foreign trafficking case was directly referred to CIC by an NGO—a sharp contrast with countries such as Italy, where NGOs play a large and significant role in identifying victims. This ad hoc approach to combating trafficking will not succeed with a problem so vast, so complex, and so serious.

Putting it all together: The need for a coordinated approach

As we've seen, no comprehensive system to protect and assist victims of human trafficking exists in Canada. Instead, there is a mostly spotty patchwork of services that varies enormously by province and locality where the victim is identified. NGOs are a critical part of the solution, but so are supportive police officers, immigration officials, and other victim service providers. Indeed, recent cases have revealed major gaps in the ability of various federal and provincial agencies to coordinate their efforts with police and NGOs.

Without better coordination, the goal of helping these survivors to recover and rehabilitate remains unattainable. However, even
the smallest steps to achieve this have been thwarted. In late 2008, for instance, a Federal-Provincial-Territorial (FPT) governmental working group on human trafficking was proposed to coordinate multiple levels of government. But even before it got started, its first face-to-face meeting was cancelled.

In spite of the difficulties, two provinces have already developed models that others could easily adapt or employ as templates.

British Columbia's Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons (OCTIP)

In 2007, British Columbia became the first province in Canada to formally recognize the problem of human trafficking when it created OCTIP under the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General. Based in Victoria with an office in Vancouver, OCTIP was launched “with a mandate to develop and coordinate B.C.'s response to human trafficking” with these defined objectives:

•  reduce and prevent human trafficking

•  identify and protect trafficked persons

•  coordinate services for trafficked persons

•  contribute to national and international efforts, including prosecutions, to eliminate human trafficking

Funding comes from the Ministries of Public Safety and Solicitor General, and Children and Family Development. For foreign trafficked children, OCTIP works closely with the B.C. Migrant Services Program to meet their specialized needs.

OCTIP struggled in the early days to engage willing partners in its efforts to enhance systems for identifying and assisting trafficking victims in the province. Arranging regular meetings with key agencies has also proved difficult. Nevertheless, changes are slowly taking effect as victims are identified and their need for assistance makes bureaucratic wrangling seem ridiculous.

In March 2009, the CIC in British Columbia issued the province's first
temporary residence permit (TRP) for a trafficking victim. The RCMP had been investigating a foreign sex trafficking case in which Chinese women were being sold on Craigslist through a network of apartments in Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, and Coquitlam. Police alerted OCTIP and provided information about the victims. In turn, OCTIP prepared shelter, packages of personal items, clinical counsellors, and interpreters, including a child protection worker fluent in Mandarin. At four locations, OCTIP staff and service providers waited to meet with the trafficked women immediately after the RCMP had executed its warrants to raid the micro-brothels. While the initial response ran smoothly, insufficient longer-term planning caused difficulties, not least because suspected associates of the traffickers discovered the location of the shelter. Despite this, one of the seven Chinese women stayed in touch with a clinical counsellor and received a TRP.

This marked a significant step forward for the province. A major raid of massage parlours in December 2006 had been heavily criticized for its treatment of the women, including the use of handcuffs by police, as well as allegations that information about the raid had been leaked beforehand. An internal RCMP review noted concerns about the raids and even found that men claiming to be husbands of the women were at police detachments and influenced their responses to police questioning.

The demands on OCTIP are significant, requiring a greater strategic focus on the aspects of human trafficking most prevalent in British Columbia. Of immediate concern are domestic sex trafficking affecting underage girls, including Aboriginal youth, internet- facilitated exploitation through popular online bulletin board websites, the plight of foreign women in the province's sex industry, the vulnerability of live-in caregivers and domestic servants, and the transit of trafficking victims through the province into the United States. In order to adapt to new threats OCTIP, in co-operation with local organizations and federal agencies, must also maintain its own intelligence information about emerging trends.

The Action Coalition on Human Trafficking (ACT Alberta)

ACT
Alberta is a diverse group of organizations comprising NGOs, the RCMP, community groups, and provincial government representatives. It is funded by the provincial government and coordinated by the NGO Changing Together. ACT Alberta operates mainly in Calgary and Edmonton, holding regular meetings in those cities to improve their response to human trafficking. Smaller cities and rural communities across the province are also becoming involved, including Fort McMurray, Red Deer, Lac la Biche, Grande Prairie, Brooks, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge. Using a grassroots approach to encourage local communities to form their own ACT committees, chapters of ACT open their membership to any interested organization or individual.

ACT Alberta co-operates with the RCMP in assisting victims of human trafficking and benefits too from the willingness of the Government of Alberta to quickly implement key policy changes. However, not all partners have embraced this community-based approach; ACT Alberta has encountered some difficulty with federal agencies, most notably CIC. A senior official with ACT Alberta has accused the federal agency of acting as though “they [CIC] were the experts, they have the handout from Ottawa, they know what they're doing—don't question them.”

ACT Alberta recognizes that it needs greater resources to meet the needs of victims. While the coalition has developed a basic network of services to help victims become survivors, it has not been without difficulty.

Thérèse is a young woman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo whose story appears in the opening chapter. She was a sex slave in her own country for over a decade before her trafficker brought her to Canada in April 2008. When Thérèse escaped her traffickers, ACT Alberta tried to help her overcome numerous challenges in getting the assistance she needed.

“There were huge pitfalls,” says Sherilyn Trompetter, assistant
executive director of Changing Together. “There was confusion about who was responsible for what in terms of the provincial level and the federal level.” Trompetter's organization had a hard time helping Thérèse obtain legal immigration status in Canada, which put her at risk of detention and deportation.

“There were differing conclusions with the RCMP saying, ‘Yes we think she's a victim.' CIC said, ‘No, she wasn't,'” says Trompetter. “The RCMP said, ‘She is, and you are issuing a TRP.' Then it became a pissing war between two federal agencies.”

Trompetter is highly critical of CIC's attitude. “CIC is coming at it that everyone is lying to get into the country,” she points out. “The CIC officers were very arrogant and protective of what they classified as their area of expertise. The RCMP used very different investigative techniques. They were more humane in their treatment of the victim.”

Fortunately, the RCMP and Changing Together convinced immigration officials that Thérèse was a bona fide victim of human trafficking and they issued her a TRP. She has since obtained permanent status to remain in Canada because she cannot safely return to life in her own conflictridden homeland.

10

HOMEGROWN HUMAN TRAFFICKERS

W
hen grappling with the concept of human trafficking, many Canadians find the mindset of traffickers among the most difficult aspects to come to terms with. To some degree, we can understand the motive behind various crimes ranging from theft to murder. But what drives human beings to treat others as less than human? The predatory behaviour of human traffickers seems to extend well beyond a means of control to encompass sadism, brutality, torture, and psychological cruelty.

Although the reasons underlying the behaviour of traffickers are many and often complex, all are rooted in the most common motivator of criminal activity: money.

Sex trafficking is highly lucrative. The Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC) estimates that domestic sex traffickers earn an average of $280,000 annually from
every
victim under their control.

The total number of females exploited across Canada by domestic sex traffickers is unknown, but individual traffickers may exploit between one and four victims at a time, whereas larger criminal networks may exploit dozens of victims simultaneously. The estimated financial gains shown in the table on the next page are consistent with those emerging in recent convictions of human traffickers in Canada. It seems that trafficking in people may be even more lucrative than trafficking in illegal drugs, and with revenues like these, sex trafficking will only get worse if it is not seriously confronted.