Status of Women Committee on Dec. 5th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much. Time is up again.

Ms. Stronach, and then Mr. Stanton.

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Ekberg, you mentioned an international rapporteur. This is probably the first time we've heard this, in all of our testimony, unless I missed it somewhere along the way. You said it was very effective and essential. Can you talk to us a bit about that?

[Gunilla Ekberg]

In 1996 the EU suggested, in a declaration to all the member states, that they should have national rapporteurs to monitor the situation of trafficking in the countries. Sweden and Holland decided to do that in 1998, Belgium a little bit later.

I'm not suggesting this to Canada, but the Swedish rapporteur position is situated with the national criminal police. The rapporteur is a detective inspector. She's been doing this for nine years now. She writes regular reports on the extent of trafficking--who the victims are, what services they have accessed--and also on operational tactics, since she's with the police.

The national rapporteur position in Nepal has a different angle. It's an independent entity, also monitoring the situation, doing research, and writing reports. Both of these rapporteurs do recommendations, but the Dutch one does more research. I don't prefer that model. I prefer the model of an independent entity that has the mandate to go around the country and talk to police, talk to NGOs, talk to public authorities who are working on it--or who are not working on it and should--and give the recommendations once a year that should be implemented.

In all of these places, it's funded by the government but it's independent. It's a very useful tool.

Seven of the Swedish rapporteur's reports have been translated into English. The eighth is on its way. We could send that, if you like.

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

In my opinion, Madam Chair, it would be really worthwhile to look further into this.

I would assume that those reports and recommendations are made public on an annual basis as well.

[Gunilla Ekberg]

Yes, and they're made public through a press conference in order to give a lot of attention to what the rapporteur says. The intention is also to make governments react and do things.

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I like the fact, and I would agree with you, that if the role is independent and can make recommendations, that strengthens it.

It's my opinion that we should study that further and have the opportunity to include that in our series of recommendations.

[Gunilla Ekberg]

If I may, I think it's important that it's not only a law and order person. It has to be based on gender equality and on an understanding of the principles behind why we're doing things. That's what the one in Sweden is, which makes a big difference in terms of the recommendations.

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

A consistent challenge we hear throughout is with regard to awareness and education. I think if it's done as you suggested, with a communications aspect to it as well, with a press conference, that could become an annual focus and a tool for measurement as well in terms of progress.

[Gunilla Ekberg]

It should be somebody who's ultimately the best at it, somebody who knows what everybody else is doing.

[Belinda Stronach, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Yes.

My next focus will be the TRP. We're obviously going to recommend restructuring the TRP. What are the essential things we need to look at, the hit list, in terms of the TRP? Actually, the social permit is another thing that we really haven't heard much about, the connection made with the NGO, or the social community, and the assistance, the linkage to the CIC.

What are the essential things we need to include in the revamping of the TRP?

[Gunilla Ekberg]

As I said, social permits would be the ideal. If you do connect it with testifying, it's important that the women are protected and secure and have access to all the services they need, both psychological and physical--money and assistance to live, and to live in a protected area.

I want to add that in Sweden we have started to collaborate, in collaborative chains, with all of the public authorities and the NGOs that are responsible to protect and give assistance to victims. If a victim is identified, the police should be able to call one of those individuals in that group and then the whole process starts. We have that in the three largest cities now.

You can't have a permit if you don't have the services connected to it. The pimps are after the women. Some young women are very attached to the traffickers in the sense that they have lived with these men and have been tortured for years. They're going to try to escape. And some women want to go back home. Not everyone wants to stay in the country where they end up, at least not in Sweden, because that's the place where they've been terribly violated; they have children, and they may have something at home.

So there must be a safe return process that is actually safe.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Stanton is next.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for taking the time to join us here today.

I'll ask this of the Sisters. Madam Wilson and Madam Atkinson, in your report you made some compelling points around two things as issues that need to be addressed. One addressed poverty as a root cause and the other was about the issue of demand, demand particularly for prostitution services.

Throughout the course of our testimony on this issue we've often gone between those two apparent causes. I wonder if you could expand a little on what appears to be a cause-and-effect situation, because we've heard both sides of it. The troubling part for me and perhaps for other committee members is that trying to bring redress to this issue, particularly poverty in the third world, is a massive global issue. Of course, we're dealing with what we can do at the Canadian level. On the other hand, criminal law is something we can change. Could you talk a little bit about which it is? Is it poverty? Is it demand? Which should we really focus on to address this issue?

[Joan Atkinson]

Well, I think I can say it's both, which is probably not the answer you wanted to hear. If we go to why people are willing to put themselves in such vulnerable and risky situations, it's because they don't have options in their country of origin if they're being trafficked internationally. Even within Canada, if they're coming from a rural community into a city and get caught up in the trafficking network, it's because they don't have options where they are, so poverty is probably the deepest cause.

On the prostitution piece, I think we can do something and do something fairly quickly around going after the pimps and the controllers of these women and taking away the criminalization of the prostitutes themselves, because most of those women we know would not put themselves in those situations willingly, consciously, and deliberately. They're there because in their minds there are no other options for them.

Once you've been dehumanized in the process of prostitution, it's very difficult to move out of it unless you have a lot of supports in place to help you do it, so at the international community, action on poverty is absolutely necessary, and within Canada some of the goals that make poverty history both internationally and nationally need to be addressed.

[Sue Wilson]

One of the things we can do as well from a policy level within Canada is to recognize the reality of economic refugees. If we don't give people legal means to enter the country, they will take much riskier routes, and that's a big piece of what makes people vulnerable to being trafficked. It is a reality, and we need to acknowledge the reality in our policies and make room for that.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Since I've run out of time on this issue, why don't we finish up with a minute from our other two witnesses on the same topic? Do you have anything to add to this obvious divide that we need to deal with in some context in our report?

[Jamie McIntosh]

Yes, if I might. Certainly sex trafficking is exacerbated by poverty and economic desperation, but we do not find, in our experience, epidemic levels of sex trafficking whenever we find poverty in the world. You'll see endemic levels of poverty in different countries and different locations, but there are not the same levels of human trafficking, especially sex trafficking.

In fact, what we find is that sex trafficking flourishes on a large scale only in those countries or communities in which it is tolerated by local or national law enforcement, so it is simply not good enough to say that providing more international development assistance will in some way alleviate the problem.

I worked for four years with an international development organization and understand the critical need to provide that sort of assistance, but unless it's married up with a respect for the rule of law and respect for the rights of those individuals in those situations, they will have all that's given to them cherry-picked away from them. They will be deprived of their rights, and their freedom and their liberty will be circumscribed by others who have more economic, physical, legal, social, or political power than they to prey upon them; unless, through respect for the rule of law and through enforcement of the rights of these individuals, you restrain the hand of those who are oppressing these individuals, assistance that goes to them--just like graft and greed and corruption--can be diverted into the pockets of the traffickers and the pimps.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We're out of time. Maybe we could get another bit of that answer through some other people's questions. We're trying to give everybody a chance here today.

Madame Deschamps, it's your five minutes.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much for being here today.

Ms. Ekberg, I would like you to tell us more about the Swedish model. Apparently you have taken part in the drafting of a bill on human trafficking.

I would like to know how this came about in Sweden. Was it the result of a joint action between the civil society and the law enforcement community and of a political will? How did the implementation of an act on human trafficking come about? Where did this come from? How was this put into motion?

You mentioned culture. All the witnesses we heard in this Committee have a hard time defining human trafficking. We have difficulty agreeing on the subject. I would like to know how to channel this definition in this Committee.

[Gunilla Ekberg]

First, Canada would need to use the definition of the Protocol, which is very clear. In my opinion, the law we have here in Canada is inaccurate. The interpretation of the Protocol in the law is incorrect. Therefore, this law needs to be changed so that it may be compatible with what is available on the international level.

In Sweden, we have been working for a very long time against prostitution and trafficking. During the 1970s, we began asking ourselves how we could do something, especially for the victims. This is when we decided to develop a law that would criminalize the buyers of sexual services. We also enacted a very stringent legislation on procuring. In 2002, we decided to establish a legislation on human trafficking because we had ratified the Protocol.

As is always the case for laws in Sweden, the government begins by working on a draft. Next, this draft is sent to all the agencies working on this issue. They discuss it, and the rough draft is amended following this consultation in writing.

Nevertheless, we notice that the law on trafficking, which is now available, is not stringent enough. Indeed, when women over the age of 18 are involved in trafficking, it is very difficult at this stage to lay charges against traffickers, especially because judges do not understand the situation of these victims. They think that these women are working voluntarily in the brothels and that this is something they want to do.

Furthermore, not only will we reinforce the law, but at the same time, we have decided to better educate judges and prosecutors. We can't simply make a law. It's very important to really educate judges.

In Sweden, all traffickers are convicted according to the law on procuring; they are not free. However, prison sentences are shorter for procuring than for trafficking. I could provide you with all the details later on, because it's a bit complicated.

The Canadian law is not stringent enough. According to statistics, there are between 600 and 800 victims of trafficking in Canada. This is impossible because this is a big country. In the smaller countries of the European Union, there are many more.

This is the situation in Canada because of the distinction between women who come here voluntarily, and who are considered as such because they have exotic dance visas, for example, and those who are forced to come here. This way of defining the word "force" doesn't work. This is why I said that we needed to insert in the law, for example,

abuse of a person's vulnerability

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Mathyssen, and then Ms. Davidson.

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

Thank you. You caught me unawares.

Mr. McIntosh, you were talking about the fact that poverty isn't necessarily always the cause. Sometimes it has to do with the fact that governments are not particularly interested in preventing trafficking. They don't have that dedication to support the women in the community.

Canada has a lot of leverage. We conduct trade agreements around the world, and we have a certain reputation as a country that respects human rights. Do we need to connect human rights and a clear prohibition against trafficking with any trade agreements we make? Is that a way to convince these foreign entities we mean business and trafficking is something we take seriously?

[Jamie McIntosh]

What you have to assess is the power structure that allows the perpetrators to prevail over the vulnerable. Generally speaking, as the root cause, somebody's pockets are being lined; somebody is profiting from the exploitation of these vulnerable women and children. It would certainly be worthwhile to explore those types of connections, where trade agreements....

The U.S., for example, has something called the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, with their Trafficking in Persons Report, as I'm sure you're aware. They monitor and rank certain countries on how well they are doing in taking concrete steps to obliterate human trafficking, not just to talk about it, not just to research it, not just to study it, but to shut down and secure criminal prosecutions and convictions against the perpetrators.

We have only been able to effectively leverage the situations on the ground—as in Cambodia, for example—when we have been able to bring effective political pressure on those countries by jeopardizing their trade relationships. For example, Cambodia was placed on a tier 3 by the U.S., which is the worst form of abuse--they're not doing anything about it. Once they recognized some serious revenue streams could be interrupted, individuals did the cost-benefit analysis, and the government decided to begin to take specific action that allowed us to rescue 37 girls in that situation. This is certainly a worthwhile place to explore, if we want to ensure rhetoric is not the only means of protecting these individuals.

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

When you began, you referred to a young woman who began as a slave labourer in a sweatshop. Clearly, we have connections to countries where there are sweatshops. We receive a great many goods from places like Vietnam and Cambodia, where sweatshops are in play. Do we need to educate Canadians better about the products we buy and the contribution we make through our buying power to these kinds of organizations that, as you say, have power and control and can victimize people?

[Jamie McIntosh]

Excellent question.

The issue goes beyond actual awareness, because as I travel and speak across the country, I think many Canadians, especially the younger generation, are quite aware of some of the international situations relating to slave labour or cocoa or coffee or these sorts of things. The challenge is...the NGO community, including World Vision, has done certain studies that talk about how boycotting a certain industry, for example, or a specific entity sometimes has a law of unintended consequences, where it jeopardizes the welfare of those individuals who are being taken advantage of, where they're jettisoned into an even worse economic environment.

We have to go beyond...while awareness is a component, we have to involve ourselves in sort of surgical strikes against the perpetrators we can identify, who are performing the most egregious violations of individual human rights. This is why our model is not broad-based, but is taking the individual stories from the religious community and the relief and development workers deployed abroad, who witness the individual abuses. We find the most egregious ones and gather enough evidence to be able to build a case that can shut down that particular sweatshop or rice mill or brick kiln. We've seen those individuals who were released start cooperative environments afterwards, where they're profiting and enjoying the fruit of their own labour. We need to provide that protection.