Greetings. Namaste. My name is Anu George Canjanathoppil and I'm the executive director of IJM Canada. We are the world's largest anti-human trafficking organization and we believe that we can end slavery in our lifetime.
We are present in all regions where the most vulnerable populations are, and my testimony comes from that experience.
I want you to picture a woman, a mother in her sari, like me, with a baby, caught in the midst of a lockdown just trying to get home. She died of hunger and thirst on the train platform. The media was flooded with painful images of her hungry child tugging at her sari to wake his dead mother, and trying to drink milk from this dead woman's breast. It makes me ask whatever happened to that baby, or the millions of children who are more vulnerable now more than ever. She was just one of the 14 million people displaced in India because of the pandemic.
The phenomenon of reverse migration has left millions of poor, vulnerable people stranded, exposed to extreme violence and a life that makes death feel like a relief.
Online child sexual exploitation tripled from 400,000 to 1.2 million in 2020. In the Philippines alone, 65% of the time it's a relative forcing these children to commit sexual acts. This is in sharp contrast to the notion that we are safer at home. There were more than 56 million children out of school in just one country in South Asia. Of those, more than 10.1 million are child labourers. Globally, we witnessed a spike in child marriages during the pandemic, resulting in 13 million more girls forced into early marriages.
This evokes a pertinent question. Are our children safe? We should care because we may have been responsible for this.
The year 2020 changed many things, but not the way we consume goods. Consumption has, in fact, increased. The products we consume continue to be made by those enslaved and trafficked. It is our irresponsibility that has contributed to getting people into this vicious cycle. Therefore, it is our responsibility to respond.
Our privilege is what causes us to think that as long as education is provided, jobs are there, drinking wells are there and poverty is addressed.... However, if a child or a woman is raped on the way to school or the well, or a father is working as a slave to provide one meal a day for his family, then we have a serious lacuna in what we believed was a solution in addressing poverty.
Communities need food, water and education, but before poverty in these communities can be addressed, the violence must be dealt with. IJM is focused on addressing that gap. We do this by rescuing victims, bringing criminals to justice, restoring survivors, strengthening justice systems and ending violence by ending impunity.
There are three regions I want to talk about today: Latin America, Southeast Asia and South Asia. All these regions have targeted the Canadian government as allies in the pursuit of the advancement of international development.
The feminist agenda is meant to elevate the rights and privileges of women throughout the world. For women to be elevated to an equal place in society, economic empowerment is needed. That's what the Canadian government has fought and continues to fight to accomplish. However, true economic empowerment cannot happen amidst a context of rampant violence. The story of the woman in the beginning is a clear example of that.
Global Affairs Canada is a crucial player in the pursuit to protect women and children from violence in the Northern Triangle. Canada can help fund a tech consortium, which will scale protection through innovative approaches. They can help Guatemala fund a gold standard of trauma-informed services for the healing and restoration of victims of violence. Andean countries have identified Canada and GAC as a stakeholder in making the protection of women and children a priority in their countries. Seven out of 10 women and girls are victims of violence in Bolivia. There is an opportunity right there for us to impact change.
Southeast Asia, the area oftentimes referred to as the manufacturing corridor, is largely powered by migrant workers and their children who are under extreme exposure to violence, trafficking and slavery, all of which have been exacerbated by COVID-19. With Canada's investment, we believe we can produce an intervention model to end slavery in the supply chain in these areas. This alone has the potential to provide protection for 17 million people—all because of Canada's commitment to freedom.
Finally, that leaves us with South Asia. As you know, India is a valued trading partner and is a strong economic force. Canada's proposed supply chain legislation, the modern slavery act, will require higher scrutiny for companies importing goods into Canada. By investing in initiators to partner with the Government of India to protect its citizens and children from violence, we can dramatically mitigate these potential negative effects. The act would actually do what it says, which is end modern-day slavery.
As a survivor of violence myself, I have committed my work to the theory of change because I have seen it work. It is what motivated me to lead the rescue of 10,000 people, but I have had a second motivation as well. It is fear. It is the fear of not having anyone show up. Fear always lies with the victims, which is so often women and children and never with the perpetrator.
I'm not a powerful influencer. I'm just another one of those women who fall into the statistic of being a victim of violence once, but each one of you—everyone sitting here—has the capacity to make history at a time like this. It's a time where everyone takes comfort in looking inward and trying to protect themselves, their community and their country. You have been willing to use your influence to impact change. You have the power to no longer allow violence to happen unchecked and to no longer tolerate it as a nation and as people. Imagine what that could mean to the lives of those languishing in violence, slavery and hopelessness.
What will you do so you don't have to see pictures of a precious baby boy orphaned because of the effects of violence on his now-dead mother?
Namaste.