Good day. I'd like to thank the members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for the opportunity to be here today. It's both a pleasure and a privilege to be able to contribute to your study on human trafficking in Canada.
If you put together everything you know about a kidnapping victim, a domestic violence victim, a rape victim, a child abuse victim, and a person with addictions, you have the reality and mindset of many of the human trafficking victims we encounter. More needs to be done to understand these individuals and to support them.
I'd like to begin by telling you a bit about the makeup of our team here in Ottawa, our mandate and goals, as well as our approach to working collaboratively with survivors of human trafficking. Our Ottawa police human trafficking unit was officially created on January 23 of last year, after a lengthy pilot project. Our six-person team is comprised of four investigators, a full-time crime analyst, and me, the sergeant who oversees the unit's activities and investigations.
In the last year alone, we have seen a 21% increase in active investigations where we have laid charges. This equates to approximately 10 additional investigations per investigator for the year. Our mandate is to identify victims and survivors of human trafficking through both proactive and reactive investigations and to support the prosecution of the traffickers. Our unit's main objectives are to render assistance and offer support services for any and all survivors wishing to exit the sex trade work. We diligently investigate and prosecute any traffickers once survivors are ready to come forward, provide statements, and proceed through the judicial system. We raise awareness and educate partners and stakeholders about human trafficking. We also treat every victim and survivor with the utmost respect and dignity.
Here are some of the successes and best practices that I can share from our experiences in Ottawa. At the Ottawa Police Service human trafficking unit, we aim to conduct as many proactive initiatives as possible. We participate in national and provincial initiatives, including the Northern Spotlight initiative, where we work collectively with other agencies to identify and locate victims of sex trafficking.
During high-profile sports events, such as the 2017 Grey Cup and the week leading up to it, we reached out to 21 sex trade workers. I'm happy to report that our unit, in conjunction with the Gatineau police service, managed to rescue two sex trade workers who opted to take our support services and leave their traffickers. Although from a police perspective no charges were laid, these two cases are most certainly viewed as successes, in our eyes. With the assistance of our victim support community and their resources, one of the survivors was safely returned to her family and friends in another province.
Our team has always had a “victim first” approach, and we always aim to reach out in a very non-threatening manner. We make it clear that we are there to help rather than prosecute victims. We connect victims with community resources, and offer safety plans for those not yet ready to exit the sex trade.
At the Ottawa Police Service human trafficking unit, we make it a point to treat each and every one equally, as we only get a glimpse into their lives, stories, or experiences. In the words of Maya Angelou, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” We have had much success with this approach, and we are hopeful that more police agencies will respond in the same manner. If all police agencies took this approach, I feel we would see much more co-operation and willingness to provide information about traffickers. The trust in police would grow exponentially. As well, in the future we would aspire to bring along outreach workers with lived experience to better relate and empathize with survivors, thus increasing the trust in us and the process of exiting the sex trafficking world.
In terms of the challenges we continue to face, I would say that education continues to be an area where much more work needs to be done. As I mentioned, we exponentially increased education and awareness of trafficking through meetings, information sessions, presentations to organizations such as law enforcement training facilities, community organizations, border services, and regional hotel associations.
We have started to work with post-secondary institutions, and would like to expand our outreach to transportation hubs, such as airports and bus and train terminals. This has certainly generated an enormous increase in investigation and follow-ups from various community groups, school boards, as well as stakeholders. As a result of our increased community partnerships, we've been able to identify more sex trade workers, maintain contact with victims, and connect them with ongoing community services and assistance.
Despite our efforts to raise awareness, we have noticed that increased understanding of the realities and the complexities of human trafficking victims would be beneficial at the judicial level. It's quite an extensive process to assist our survivors during the judicial process until their trial goes to court. They are always revictimized by preliminary hearings and then the actual trials. Making some concerted efforts to minimize their testimony and accept their sworn audio and video statements in court would go much further in instilling and restoring faith in the judicial process for all our survivors throughout the country.
Prosecuting traffickers has proven very difficult. As I mentioned, most survivors have been manipulated and convinced to be distrustful of police. Subsequently, court testimony has been a major hurdle for our investigators. More often than not, traffickers have managed to affect and threaten our survivors in a negative way prior to their testifying in court. Numerous survivors refuse to testify, and recant their statements while awaiting trial, putting lots of the investigations in jeopardy.
We anticipate much success in the wake of the Ontario Court of Justice project appointing judges to bail hearings, specifically in our jurisdiction. This concerted effort by the Ministry of the Attorney General will assist in increasing the prospect of detaining traffickers pretrial.
We are aware of the push to have Criminal Code amendments that would remove preliminary inquiries. This would certainly minimize any revictimization of our survivors prior to trial. With the hard work of our investigators and prosecutors over the last few months, we have seen some very successful convictions on human trafficking cases within our provincial courts. These types of investigations are being recognized for their complexities.
To conclude, I would leave the committee with these observations about addressing the needs of human trafficking victims. Coordinated efforts by police, community support organizations, and the judicial system continue to be at the source of our success stories. When it comes to the service provided and offered to our survivors, we will need to continue to strengthen our partnerships with stakeholders for the benefit of these survivors.
Thank you very much for your time. I'm happy to answer any questions the committee would like to bring forward at this time.