TORONTO: Canada’s police forces need better training when it comes to battling human trafficking in the sex trade, according to a U.S. government report.
Canada continues to be “a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking,” including Canadian and foreign victims, says the U.S. State Department’s July 2015 Trafficking In Persons Report.
Canada is among almost 200 countries examined in the report, which ranks a country’s ability and commitment to tackle human trafficking when it comes to the sex and labour trades. Canada has acknowledged the problem, has made efforts to address it, and has met U.S. minimum standards in combating it, added the report, which says there are still problems.
It urged Canada to “strengthen training” for law enforcement — as well as for those in the justice sector, health care, and social work — in “the identification and provision of assistance to trafficking victims, as well as the subtle forms of coercion employed by traffickers.”
Conservative MP Joy Smith, who is stepping away from politics to combat human trafficking on a full-time basis, said human trafficking is not yet being dealt with as a top priority for most Canadian police forces.
Many forces, she added, continue to hold on to a “dark ages” view of prostitution being a chosen path and simply a part of society.
Police officers of all ranks must learn that many sex workers are forced into the business after being trafficked by skilled manipulators.
“Education is definitely lacking,” said Smith. “There is a reason (human trafficking) got to epidemic proportions … What is needed is training on how to identify a perpetrator — what they look like, what they do. And what they do is very subtle. It is a gigantic manipulation … The perpetrators come off as the victims’ friends. They don’t come off as bad guys or bad women.”
Smith said police in Toronto, Halton, London, Calgary, and Winnipeg are examples of forces currently leading the way in battling trafficking.
Toronto Police in April arrested nine people suspected of recruiting young women and girls from dance clubs, group homes, and schools in Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Alberta. Investigators alleged traffickers put the girls to work in different provinces.
