Status of Women Committee on Oct. 19th, 2006

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a point of clarification, through you to Ms. Mathyssen.

When you say “mandate”, I assume we're talking about the terms and conditions of the women's program that was approved by the Treasury Board Secretariat.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

No, it's in regard to the parameters and basically how the women's groups get their funding.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I think we've heard in previous witness testimony and through our reports—I think it was even in the minister's report to the committee—that the terms and conditions of the women's program had been renewed and approved by the Treasury Board Secretariat. So I'm not sure about this process-wise. Because it has been approved, what does that mean in terms of having to go back and revisit it?

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

It just means that there will be a vote in the House and the government will have to decide whether to respect the wishes of the House or not. That's all.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you for that clarification.

Certainly, as Ms. Minna has already recognized, I don't support the motion. The expenditure cuts were considered across the broad spectrum. The focus of this, as we have heard, is to make sure that the dollars committed to this program are in fact not being tied up in administration, more unneeded research, and symposia of this sort.

Those dollars will hopefully be saved, but none of that is intended to deprive in any way the dollars flowing exactly to women's programs. In fact, we have seen through the main estimates discussion in our last meeting that dollars committed to specific programs—the women's program at $10.8 million and another $1 million for Sisters in Spirit—represent an increase in direct funding to women's programs.

I can attest to the fact that this government is solidly behind committing funds and resources to where they can be used and be effective in the community. The focus of the savings is on administration. It is on the reduction of dollars there. There have been countless reports and research done in these areas. It's time we move dollars into the programs that will create an effect and in fact create some results to try to address the objectives that are set out, as the minister has said in her comments.

That's all I want to say, speaking against the motion, but I understand the sincerity with which it has been put. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Mr. Stanton.

Ms. Neville.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I don't want to prolong the discussion, Madam Chair, but these motions will in no way affect the timetable of the committee. As I understand it, the work of the committee goes on as scheduled.

Secondly, the issue at hand is really addressing the new criteria that have been put in place for the same amount of program dollars. They are new criteria that in fact will eliminate many organizations that have come to look at Status of Women as a source of funding. Having met with quite literally dozens and dozens of women in my community last week, I can say to you, Madam Chair, that this is a major concern.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

If there's no other discussion or debate, we do have witnesses, and we thank everybody for being brief. I think it's important that we deal with this issue so we can get on to our witnesses who are here.

Is it the will of the committee to have a vote on this?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Is that a recorded vote?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Do you want to move this into one motion, or do you want them voted on separately?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Let's vote on them separately, please.

The first one is:

That, in consideration of the funding cuts announced September 25, 2006, the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status on Women recommends the government continue funding all activities of Status of Women Canada at the 2005-2006 level or higher and that the chair report the adoption of this motion to the House forthwith.

We have a tie vote.

On the matter to prolong the debate or to maintain the status quo, we're not going to prolong the debate, given the fact that we have two witnesses here who have come to give us information on an important issue. So no, I'm not going to vote to prolong the debate. I can vote either way, so I will vote in support of the motion.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

The second motion is:

That, in consideration of the new mandate of the Women’s Program of Status of Women effective September 27, 2006, the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status on Women recommends the government reinstate the previous mandate for the five years and that the chair report the adoption of this motion to the House forthwith.

It's the same thing, another tie, so I vote yes.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Now, on to the work of the day....

Mr. Poulin and Ms. Jeffrey, my apologies for the delay. Thank you so very much.

I will ask Mr. Poulin to start, or Ms. Jeffrey, whichever one would like to start first.

Thank you very much.

[Richard Poulin, Full Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Ottawa]

I want to begin by thanking you for the invitation to appear. I do not intend to repeat what is said in the paper that has already been distributed in French and English, in which it is estimated that human trafficking internationally affects between 700,000 and 4 million people, and probably more like 4 million people a year. That may in fact be an underestimation, because part of the trafficking is legal. Last year, for example, Japan delivered 77,000 dance artist visas to people in the sex trade. And that is not included in the figures on human trafficking, because it's legal, and often trafficking is only considered insofar as it involves criminal activity.

Over the last three decades, countries in the southern hemisphere have seen a spectacular rise in prostitution and the trafficking of women and children for purposes of prostitution. And for more than a decade now, that has also been the case in former socialist countries, such as the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. However, the growth of the sex industries and, hence, increased trafficking, is affecting countries in Western Europe and the Southern Pacific that legalized prostitution in the 1990s and 2000.

Victims of international human trafficking for purposes of prostitution are far more numerous than persons trafficked for the purposes of domestic exploitation or as cheap labour. International organizations, such as the ILO, or International Labour Organization, estimate that 92 per cent of the victims of trafficking are used for prostitution, and that 98 per cent of them are young women and girls. The remaining 2 per cent are boys and transvestites.

The greater the expansion of the prostitution industry, the younger the prostitutes, whether or not they are victims of human trafficking -- in other words, recruited abroad or locally. According to the International Organization for Migration, these days victims are younger than previously and children are more and more involved in the process.

Prostitution and trafficking for purposes of prostitution are nothing new. What is new, however, is the international and industrial scale of these phenomena. As a result, the demand for women and children in the sex industries is expanding practically everywhere in the world.

Legalization or regulation of the prostitution industry, including procuring, is resulting in a major expansion of the sex industries and thus an expansion of trafficking for purposes of prostitution. The Netherlands is a good indicator of the expansion that has taken place in the sex industry and the growth of trafficking for purposes of prostitution.

In 1981, there were 2,500 prostitutes; in 2004, the government estimated there to be 30,000 of them. In 1960, 95 per cent of prostitutes in The Netherlands were Dutch. In 1999, only 20 per cent were. In other words, 80 per cent of the prostitutes there are foreigners, and 70 per cent of them are undocumented.

The same phenomenon can be observed in Germany. In the mid-1990s, the number of prostitutes in Germany was estimated to be about 200,000; nowadays, the government estimates that there are 400,000 of them. So, in just a few years, the number of prostitutes doubled. In Germany, between 85 and 90 per cent of prostitutes are foreigners, and thus are victims of human trafficking for purposes of prostitution.

Human trafficking is one of the consequences of the prostitution system. Institutionalization -- in other words, legalizing sex markets -- boosts procuring activity and organized crime, but most importantly, it legitimizes gender inequality.

In those places where the industry has been legitimate for decades, we are seeing what might be called the “prostitutionalization” of the social fabric. I don't believe that word exists in English; so I wish the interpreter good luck.

I want to use the example of Thailand. In the late 1950s, and more specifically in 1957, there were estimated to be 20,000 prostitutes in Thailand. Today, there are more than 2 million, at least one third of whom are children, especially young girls. Just as a point of information, when I use the term “child”, I am using the international definition, which is a person under the age of 18. In that country, almost all the young women and young girls who are prostitutes, whether or not they have been victims of trafficking for purposes of prostitution, and whether or not they are foreigners, were brought into the industry when they were minors. Seventy five per cent of men occasionally or regularly use prostitutes. For the 5.4 million sex tourists that travel to Thailand every year, there are now 450,000 local clients per day.

Among northern tribes there, the birth of a baby girl is celebrated because her anticipated entry into prostitution promises future income. This society has become extensively “prostitutionalized”, becoming one of the most significant destinations in the world for sex tourists of all kinds. Thailand is an important destination and transit point for human trafficking. In fact, this country has turned into a sexual haven for international and local johns, procurers and traffickers, but a sexual nightmare for women and children, not only from there but also from countries adjoining the Mekong region. At this time, more than a third of all women and girls in Northern Thailand have AIDS.

Prostitution and trafficking for purposes of prostitution are the traditional activities of organized crime groups, and the massive expansion of sex markets is largely controlled by organized crime. One cannot imagine human trafficking -- including the type that has a legal character to it, such as the practice of providing artists or exotic dancer visas, which is common in many countries, including ours -- being anything other than a criminal activity. Women and children are bought, sold, and resold through these organized crime networks on local, regional and international markets, and at every stage of their transit from one country to another, they are rented out to clients. These women and children are bought, sold and shipped illegally or, depending on the circumstances, quite openly and legally both inside and outside national borders to the sex markets of the world, from the poorest countries to less poor countries, and finally to the richest countries.

This kind of global trafficking is not some sort of ad hoc operation. It requires paying bribes, and thus relies on corruption from the lowest to the highest levels of society. It also requires that one have the necessary means, which range from buying women and children under false pretences to kidnapping, trickery and forged identity papers. These are international procuring rings that operate this extremely well organized trade. These rings have the benefit of political collusion and access to economic resources, both in the country of origin, those used for transit and the countries of destination.

On a global scale, prostitution and trafficking of women and children for purposes of prostitution simply cannot be spontaneous. Population movements involving hundreds of thousands, indeed, even millions of persons annually, necessarily rely on well-structured organizations operating internationally, with extensive collusion on the part of authorities, huge financial means, and of course a whole host of recruiters, procurers, escorts, warders, “trainers” -- I'll explain what that means -- brothel keepers and killers. Criminal networks recruit women and children on site, provide visas and forged documents and organize their transportation.

Recruitment methods vary, but traffickers almost always resort to deception and violence. The most common method involves putting ads in the papers proposing jobs in another country as a hairdresser, caregiver, domestic worker, waitress, au pair, model or dancer.

Another method involves recruiting them through placement agencies, travel agencies or dating and matrimonial agencies, which are often nothing more than a front for procurers.

Victims of trafficking have also been sold by their family, their boyfriends or institutions such as orphanages.

Once someone has been recruited, that person is kept in a situation of dependency throughout the period that she is trafficked. She is passed from one person to the other until her arrival in her country of destination.

A whole succession of traffickers handle the victims as they are shunted from one place to the next, but the fate of the girls themselves never varies. Rape and other forms of servitude are often used, even for the minority of young women who know why they're being trafficked -- in other words, for purposes of prostitution.

As soon as they arrive in their country of destination, their documentation is confiscated by the traffickers and they are immediately placed on the sex markets. In Canada, that means prostitution, nude dancing, and so on. Those that resist end up in a training camp. There are a number of well-known camps in Europe -- in Italy, but also in France. There they are raped by procurers, and forced to turn 50, 60 or even more tricks a day, until they are psychologically broken.

Human trafficking for purposes of prostitution is a very considerable source of income for criminal organizations who, according to a variety of international police sources -- Interpol, Europol, etc. -- have all become involved in this highly lucrative trade. The profits, which are often laundered by being channeled into legal activities, result in the creation of dummy corporations and, in countries that have legalized prostitution, these dummy corporations carry on their business in the sex industries, although the laundered profits are also used for legal activities.

In the country of destination, the trafficking victims, whether or not they were already prostitutes in their own country, will see their passport and other papers confiscated by the people organizing the prostitution. They will have to repay their travel debt. To that are added fees for room and board, clothing, make-up, condoms, and other items that are all deducted from their income. Once all the costs have been paid, there is practically nothing left for them. A recent investigation by the International Labour Organization determined that prostitutes who are victims of trafficking end up keeping only about 20 per cent of generated income, with the rest going to the procurer.

If the prostitute does not bring in enough money, she will be threatened with sale to another procuring ring, to whom she will again have to repay her debt. She will frequently be moved from one place to another, be threatened with reprisals against her family back home, be subject to psychological, physical and sexual violence, and if she manages to escape her procurer, she runs the risk of being deported as an illegal immigrant. She is completely vulnerable, and rare are the countries that provide services to such persons and protect them from the procurers.

A further report produced by the International Organization for Migration pointed out that deporting prostitutes who are victims of trafficking to their country of origin, because they are illegal immigrants, only made the trafficking problem worse. So, that is not the answer.

And what is the situation here in Canada? Well, we really don't know much. There were two major commissions of inquiry in the 1980s on prostitution and pornography, and another on children working in the sex industries, for example.

However, none of these commissions of inquiry has been able to assess the magnitude of the prostitution and pornography industries and, consequently, the human trafficking industry. We really do not know why. Statistics Canada, which can tell us what colour of underwear immigrants from Sicily were wearing in 1951 or to carry out major assessments of the country's underground economy, has never been able or willing to tell us what the current state of the prostitution industry here in Canada actually is. As a result, we know neither how many prostitutes there are, nor what kind of income the industry generates.

I would also like to address a couple of facts we have been able to gather some information on. We know that, as regards human trafficking for purposes of prostitution and pornography, Canada is a country of both destination and transit, as well as being an originating country, something that few analysts actually talk about. In 1999, for example, the Government of British Columbia disclosed the existence of a ring involved in the trafficking of children for purposes of prostitution from its base in that province to cities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the western United States. In 2001, the report of the U.S. State Department on Human Trafficking stated that some minors of Canadian origin had been victims of trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation. The destination was the United States.

A criminal group in Vancouver, the West Coast Players, was known for being involved in trafficking for purposes of teenage prostitution. In that case, the destination was Los Angeles. In September of 1997, we learned that every week, 12 young Asian women aged from 16 to 30 and with tourist visas were being trafficked for purposes of prostitution in Canada. They were sold to brothel keepers in Markham, Scarborough, Toronto and Los Angeles. They were enslaved because of a $40,000 debt.

In 1999, the U.S. State Department's Human Rights Report stated that young girls from Costa Rica, shunted across Central America and Mexico, were engaged in prostitution in the United States and Canada. The same source reported that Malaysian women had been victims of trafficking to become prostitutes in Canada. In its 2003 report on human trafficking, the U.S. State Department pointed out that young girls and girl children from Honduras, Slovenia and Malaysia had been trafficked for purposes of prostitution here in Canada.

In the late 1990s, the Chinese and Vietnamese mafias expanded their operations in brothels in Toronto and recruited women and girls into the trade from across Southeast Asia. The women who fell victim to this trafficking were purchased by recruiters for $8,000 or less and were sold for $15,000 to procurers. Several dozen Asian women were “freed from their sexual slavery” following a series of raids by the Toronto police which, at the time, resulted in the closure of 10 brothels. The police estimated that this procuring ring was providing between 30 and 40 women to about 15 brothels in Toronto on a quarterly basis.

The Canadian police also arrested more than 40 people with links to an international prostitution and trafficking ring that sold hundreds of Asian women in North America. However, the exact number of victims is unknown. According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, approximately 800 people, primarily women and children, fall victim every year to trafficking for purposes of prostitution in Canada. However, non-government organizations estimate the number to be 15,000. As you can see, there is quite a gap between 800 and 15,000. But already in 1998, according to a report submitted to the Solicitor General of Canada, between 8,000 and 16,000 persons -- which was already a very large gap -- were estimated to be entering Canada every year with the help of smugglers.

So, to conclude, the unbridled growth of the sex industries means that fundamental human rights are increasingly being violated, particularly the rights of women and children who are treated as sexual merchandise.

One could even say that the status of women and children internationally has suffered a serious setback. In many countries, under the impact of structural adjustment policies, women and children have become what is known as new raw resources -- in other words, resources that can be exploited and exported as part of the effort to develop national and international trade. Globalization of the sex industries considerably strengthens a system of oppression and enslavement of women to the sexual pleasures of others -- that is, men.

By reducing women and girls to the status of merchandise that can be bought, sold, rented out, appropriated, exchanged or acquired, prostitution and trafficking for purposes of prostitution affect women as a group. They reinforce the connection between women and sex, established by a macho society, reducing women to a lesser form of humanity and thereby relegating them to inferior status.

The struggle against human trafficking can only succeed if it tackles the root cause of the trafficking, which is prostitution. That struggle is part of the more general goal of fighting for equality between women and men. And that equality will remain out of reach as long as men can buy, sell and sexually exploit women and children by forcing them into prostitution.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Poulin. You've really given us a lot of information to absorb. Thank you for caring so much about this subject.

Ms. Jeffrey.

[Leslie Jeffrey, Associate Professor, Department of History and Politics, University of New Brunswick]

Thank you, Ms. Sgro, and thank you to the committee for inviting me here today.

I'll start with a few caveats, and then I'll give my major points. To begin, there are a few things we need to be cautious about in the discussion of trafficking. First, it's important to remember that the concept of trafficking is still difficult and very much debated. Generally, it is seen as the use of force or deceit to transport and/or recruit people for exploitative work or service. That's the generic definition. What constitutes force and what constitutes exploitation still remains problematic.

Second, we need to be aware that our knowledge of trafficking is very limited, particularly how large or small the problem is, given that it is a largely hidden and underground phenomenon and that the definition is so loose. If you look through various documents, the numbers range incredibly widely. The International Labour Organization has put out a number of papers questioning the methodologies used here.

Third, we tend to focus on women in the sex trade, but trafficking can occur in many sectors that depend on migrant labour, such as agriculture, the garment sector, and domestic work. So there's a much larger group.

Finally, we must be aware that anti-trafficking measures, which have been in place for some time now, have had a tendency to become anti-migration measures, particularly anti-female migration measures, rather than instruments of human rights. Therefore, I would like to look at how we can take a different approach that addresses the issues raised in the discussion of trafficking by strengthening people's rights as migrants and as workers.

First, I would like to emphasize that trafficking is part of a much larger phenomenon of global labour migration. This labour migration is increasingly populated by women who are seeking better paid work to support both themselves and their families.

At the same time, however, this migration is becoming increasingly difficult to arrange independently, safely, and easily. It is important to remember that the vast majority of migrant workers, including sex workers, have sought to migrate for work--they are looking for work--but may have been taken advantage of by those who assisted that migration process. They may find themselves in an exploitative work situation that they cannot easily leave.

So the first part of the problem lies in barriers to migration for work, again, particularly for women. Trafficking and smuggling thrive on this disconnect between the demand for workers in richer countries and the ability of workers in poorer countries to get to those jobs. The demand for these workers and the need for these workers to get to these better jobs is much, much greater than the availability of actual legal channels of migration. Assisted or irregular migration through the use of various helpers has become the norm for migrant workers seeking work abroad. These helpers can be family members or employment agencies or indeed organized crime.

For example, given her options for supporting herself and her family, if a woman decides that sex work in a rich country is her best option, there is often no way for her to arrange that work independently. Therefore, migrant sex workers may face problems such as debt bondage. Debt such as $30,000 to $40,000 can be incurred through agents who arrange travel and documents. These debts can then be passed on to bar owners or bosses who take it out in wages from the women without negotiating a contract.

Women may also find themselves with irregular immigration status, in Canada, for example, which means they always have to fear arrest and deportation. The owners can use this threat of exposing their illegal status to extract even more labour for free or for cheap.

When women are able to migrate legally and independently, trafficking decreases. Analysts from the European Union have pointed out that while women from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia were frequently victims of trafficking rings several years ago, since these countries have become accession states to the EU, those trafficking numbers have dropped dramatically. Women are now able to use their easy access to the EU countries to take up informal work, whatever work that might be, and leave if things become difficult, without fear that they won't be able to get back into the country and make more money.

So there's a migration barrier problem, and the second part of the problem is the poor conditions of work in many of the sectors in which exploitation occurs. Again this can be in the garment trade, which is notorious; agricultural labour; domestic work; and the sex trade.

Because trafficking depends on poor or illegal conditions of work, it happens in those types of work that are informal or unregulated. This is where traffickers can extract the greatest profit without fear of sanction--there are no unions to hold them to any kind of work conditions, for example. Because women traditionally have fewer opportunities for work and most of their work opportunities fall into these unregulated or informal sectors like domestic work and sex work, women are more vulnerable to having their labour exploited.

Many migrant sex workers in Canada, for example, end up working in the criminalized but tolerated indoor trade. There they face a number of problems such as breach of contract, long hours, and unsafe working conditions. Migrant sex workers may have informal agreements about their work. They may have signed contracts that they didn't understand, and they have no way to enforce these contracts, complain, or seek redress if violence occurs, they're not paid, or they're enslaved. There's no one to go to.

So migrant sex workers share an interest with domestic sex workers in having the ability to enforce contracts, demand fair payment, control the pace of their work, choose the clients they wish to see, and demand protection from violence, which as you know is an enormous problem in the sex trade. The criminalized nature of sex work in Canada, however, makes this next to impossible, and only increases the risk of violence that is already endemic in sex work in Canada.

We already have criminal and border security measures, and many countries have or are party to the new transnational convention on trafficking. But this may actually make the problems worse, and this is what we've started to see. Trafficking has mostly been viewed as a criminal or a security problem rather than a human rights issue, so measures have been directed at apprehending and punishing traffickers and stopping the movement of people who may be trafficked.

However, such measures themselves may contribute to the problem because they create even higher barriers to migration, and therefore a greater need for assistance and increased potential for being taken advantage of. So tighter visa restrictions, more security checks on migrants, and increased use of detention and deportation, which have all become common, have meant that migrants without the legal means to migrate independently have to pay higher fees and look harder for assistance. They end up in higher indebtedness and can therefore be more easily taken advantage of.

Police or immigration officials' attempts to find and rescue trafficking victims may have had negative results as well. Raids on sex work establishments, for example, often result in women being deported, even though they do not want to leave the country. Some often want to continue working, just in much better conditions, and they want to be paid.

Outreach workers have reported in several countries that they have lost contact with those who may indeed be trafficked, because raids have caused establishments to move further underground, and exploited sex workers become harder to reach. Raids can actually disrupt the good work being done by outreach organizations in health promotion, violence prevention, and building those communicative links with migrant sex workers, trafficked or not.

Even as we have introduced stricter criminal measures over the past decade, there continue to be reports of higher numbers of people being trafficked. Very few people have ever been tried for trafficking, including in the United States, so clearly these criminal measures have not been having the impact we had hoped.

There are alternative solutions. We already have a number of criminal measures in place; there's no need for any more. What we might want to do is address the problems identified in discussions on trafficking by increasing the opportunities and choices for migrant workers and undercutting organized crime, rather than focusing on criminal or punitive measures.

First, we should increase women's ability to migrate independently and safely by providing increased access to and information about safe migration channels. Most trafficking occurs where women have little idea about how to get to Canada to work in whatever job, safely and legally.

With the growing demand, I suspect, for migrant labour in Canada, particularly with the economic booms out west, there will be more migrant workers seeking to access these jobs, so it is important that they be provided with the ability to access these jobs independently and safely.

A gender audit of migration policy might be a timely intervention in order to see whether and how Canadian immigration policy limits women's ability to migrate as independent workers in whatever field. Measures that aim at preventing trafficking--and these are common--by frightening women away from migrating only act as unfair barriers to women's ability to gain economic equality.

Further, Canada should definitely address the status of irregular migrants through the measures put forward in the United Nations convention on the protection of migrant workers, which we have not acceded to.

Secondly, we should address the poor conditions of work in sex work and other informal kinds of work in Canada--the garment trade, domestic work--and make women doing this kind of work less easily exploitable. For example, the criminalized and underground nature of the sex trade in Canada makes it potentially very dangerous and makes workers easily exploited by managers and owners in brothels and bars.

This committee should perhaps consult the work being done by the solicitation law review committee, and the reports being produced by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, by the Pivot society from British Columbia, by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and by all the sex trade organizations in Canada. Stella, in Quebec, for example, has done excellent work on this. They have reports on how to make the trade safer and less exploitative and on how to give sex workers themselves--migrants included--the right and the ability to fight for and enforce safe and fair working conditions.

In this vein, we need to support the work being done by sex worker outreach organizations that have made contact with migrant women and trafficked women, and support that work so they can continue to do it. Certainly, no anti-trafficking measures should be taken without sex workers and migrant rights groups at the table.

In conclusion, we must remember that the concerns being raised in the discussion of trafficking are all about the other people controlling and exploiting women. Therefore, we need to find solutions that enhance women's--including sex workers'--and migrant women's control over their own lives. We need to empower women rather than disempower them.

Two Dutch researchers have said it best, I think: “Only rights can stop wrongs”. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Ms. Jeffrey. Your presentation was very interesting, from both points of view there.

We will start with our questioning. The first round is seven minutes.

Go ahead, please, Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you very much, both of you.

This was, to some degree, some new and interesting information, and to some degree there is lots I already know from past work and past discussions, as I was involved with domestic workers' advocacy for a while with a colleague of mine, Judith Ramirez. You may have heard the name in the past to do with immigrant women and so on.

Mr. Poulin, there was a lot of good information in all the things you said, but the bottom line that struck home with me was when you said we need to attack the causes of prostitution. To some degree, Ms. Jeffrey is suggesting the same thing, that the objectification of women and children is a problem, and that we're going to find equality for men and women by breaking that down and tackling it.

This is where I have to put this on the record. I find it goes back to some of the motions we were discussing earlier. This is where I found the most disheartening situation last week when this government took away that tool from Status of Women Canada, from women in this country, as if we had already reached equality. That's the statement they've made. Women in Canada are equal; therefore we no longer have the problem.

Yet the organizations that are no longer going to be funded are where we are able to get the research that is needed to inform women of their rights, to empower women to fight for their rights, and to address the issues of lower economic situations.

I find what you say, which is part of what we've been debating around this table for some time...to tackle the main causes of prostitution and trafficking. Fundamentally, it's also a culture of the law, which is to make sure women and men are equal and that women feel that and feel empowered, which is what was stated recently. Unfortunately, in this particular government we're going in the opposite direction in Canada.

I want to question both of you.

The first one may be an unfair question, but I have to ask it since you put the causes on the table. How do you view what's happening in this country in terms of what's happening with the Status of Women Canada, which is really our main tool to tackle these issues? It's a political question. I apologize. You can choose to pass it by if you like, but I have to ask it. How will the kinds of cuts and the kinds of changes that have happened recently affect the ability of women in this country to research and identify and fight for their rights and continue to empower themselves?

It's a loaded question, and I understand that. If you want to pass, I can go on to others.

[Richard Poulin]

You are aware of the two possible interpretations of trafficking. Unfortunately, for a long time Status of Women Canada only funded research aimed at legitimizing prostitution. The allegation was that this was nothing more than sex work.

While there is no guarantee that Status of Women Canada has always been pointed in the right direction, weakening the organization will certainly not help to do so. In my opinion, weakening that program in particular is probably a mistake on the part of the government. However, I am really not in a position to say, because that is not my area of expertise as a researcher. It's really more the opinion of someone who has listened to the debates and believes that this kind of decision could create more problems than it solves.

Any institution can find itself facing problems. Choices are made by public servants and orders are given by politicians. I, personally, had problems with funding research. The result was an imbalance.

Abolitionists -- in other words, people who are in favour of decriminalizing the activities of prostitutes and of criminalizing procuring -- as opposed to those wanting to decriminalize procuring as is the case with people who are in favour of sex work -- are pushing for an attack on this industry, which is the root cause of trafficking. That is the fundamental point that distinguishes them from others. They do not confuse smuggling with trafficking.

Just for your information, human smuggling is listed in the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, which Canada has ratified. Human trafficking essentially relates to three areas: persons who are victims of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labour, and organ trafficking. The motivation for trafficking is, in 92 per cent of cases, sexual exploitation -- in other words, prostitution, pornography, and so on. As for human smuggling, it basically refers to the smuggling of illegal migrants.

Of course, abolitionists consider trafficking for purposes of prostitution to be of great importance, whereas people in favour of sex work -- and in this case, who consider prostitution to be sex work -- try to systematically minimize the trafficking phenomenon, reducing it to nothing more than international migration -- in other words, smuggling. I see this as a fundamental cleavage. It is up to you to decide what conclusions you wish to draw from all of that. However, the fact remains that this fundamental difference of opinion can be seen in groups, among academics, and probably also among members of Parliament.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you, Mr. Poulin.

I realize it's such a complex subject to try to say “Would you talk faster, slower, or whatever”, in order to get the information out. If you could be a little more succinct with your answers so that everybody gets a chance for the questions, we would appreciate it.

Your time is up, Ms. Minna, I am sorry.

Ms. Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank our two guests for coming to present their views which, as we have seen, are diametrically opposed.

My question is for Ms. Jeffrey.

I have to admit I did not really understand your presentation. And I'll tell you why. For example, you used the word “trafficking”, and yet you connected it to the term “worker”. As a novice, I am wondering how someone who is a victim of trafficking can be a worker. A worker is someone who gives his or her consent; that is not the case for someone who is subject to trafficking.

You used words like “trafficking” and “worker migration across the globe”. Perhaps I misunderstood, but my impression is that as far as you are concerned, someone who is a victim of trafficking is a person who has willingly moved from one place to the next, because some countries frowned on or criminalized that practice -- in other words, put obstacles in their path. That is what I understood you to say.

[Leslie Jeffrey]

No. That's the problem with the definition of “trafficking”. None of us can agree about what is happening.

It's very easy if we just say that people are kidnapped, forced into work, sent abroad, and enslaved. That's a very small instance, unless you believe all prostitution is forced, that people are forced into prostitution. That's one side of the debate for which trafficking is very easy.

Understandably, there are horrible things happening to migrant workers, which include being held in bondage, being forced to pay back debts, having their passports taken away, and being told they must work for free. These are all things that are happening to migrant workers in agriculture, but in the sex trade as well.

When we talk together about trafficking, some people say, “See, that's trafficking, the removal of the right of a worker to consent.” But then it gets confused with the issue of prostitution, where people see it as slavery in and of itself. So it becomes hard to identify what the issue really is.

If the issue is prostitution, if you see all prostitution as slavery, then all entry into prostitution is trafficking. It's very simple. If you talk to people who work in the sex trade industry, the vast majority of them say, “Hey, this may not be the job I wanted, but it's the best I could do under these circumstances to make a lot of money.”

I spent a year in Thailand talking to outreach workers and sex workers, and that's what they said. They said, “I can work in a factory, where I get paid nothing, and I'm locked in at night and my rights are abused, or I can work in sex work and make some more money and some day become a hairdresser. Those are my choices. I have decided to work in sex work. They may not be great choices, but those are the choices I have.”

If you then consider that same woman who said, “Hey, those are my choices” as being trafficked, then the police would come in and say, “Out you come. You're a victim.” And she would say, “No, I'm trying to make some money here. What's going to happen to me is you're going to send me back to my village, and I will have no job, no money. I'll be in debt. And I've just been rescued. That's not rescue to me.”

What other people, including the International Labour Organization and the International Organization for Migration, have tried to do is identify not the people but the acts that constitute trafficking, and that includes taking advantage of people who are in fact trying to migrate for work. The vast majority of migrant workers today, who aren't part of some special program, have to use helpers to get them across borders. And those helpers will say, “I've got a job for you in Canada or in the United Kingdom.” They may or may not lie about that job, and they may or may not take advantage of people. But some of them do--and that's trafficking.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

What I understood from Mr. Poulin's statistics is that the vast majority of people who are trafficked are used for purposes of prostitution, and that in 48 per cent of cases, they are minors.

In your opinion, do the 48 per cent of victims -- in other words, these individuals who are under the age of 18 -- have a choice when they are sold by their family? I gathered from Mr. Poulin's presentation that having a daughter is considered to be a source of wealth in these societies, because of the money that she can bring in. So, in a way, these are societies that value prostitution. That being the case, does choice has really anything to do with it?

Furthermore, the question is whether it is possible to buy or sell a human being. Is a human being no different from any of the chairs in this room?