Thank you.
I think it's important to note that I'm not a researcher of human trafficking. I'm studying the organization of the sex industry in the country. I'm looking at the health and working conditions of people involved, and I'm interested in their access to non-judgmental services. I've used a variety of survey methods to try to get access to a diversity of people who are involved in the activity. In those hour-and-a-half-length interviews, human trafficking has been mentioned. It comes up when I ask people about their early life events and how they got involved in the sale of sexual services. That's where 6% describe themselves as being forced or exploited in their earlier life.
That definitely differs from some of the other information you're hearing, which is from when victims of human trafficking are connected with services, so that's very, very different. In studies of the sex industry, where your example is only a clinical example—that is, only people who go to seek services—you get a much more homogenous sample than the one I described we have found in our research.
Second, we chose in our study that a person had to be legally able to work in Canada because we were interested in the impact of the prostitution Criminal Code laws, adult prostitution code laws, on people's ability to work in the country and their experiences of health, safety, and victimization. We were especially interested in Bedford and the consequences that would happen in the Criminal Code. That was the reason and also the reason we chose people as adults.