Control comes in a variety of forms, so there is no single way by which youth are being controlled. We are seeing trading, which was highlighted in our presentation. Trading, for youth and young people, means trading basic needs—housing, income and food—for sex. That's one of the forms we see. Also, we are seeing a number of cases of trafficking, in which they are tricked and lured. They are being controlled, and we are also seeing the issue of power dynamics with the people they trust.
Those are some of the things that go on in terms of sexual exploitation and human trafficking with the youth in Nova Scotia. We see many cases in rural communities. We see them in marginalized communities. We see it in the school system, and most especially we see it in the child welfare system. In the work I do on child protection, I see that many of the youth who come through our doors have either been involved in child protection themselves as youth or have parents who have had involvement in child protection.
These are some of the underlying, root causes of the control. It goes back to the vulnerability, which we talked about in the presentation, which is most often the root cause of control.