Certainly.
There is an awareness of the amount of sexual exploitation geographically, but if we're being fair and honest, we actually don't know those numbers with 100% certainty. The pervasive issues around the enforcement of Canada's current Criminal Code, even prior to PCEPA's trafficking provisions, were that it was largely not being enforced. A lot of trafficking, as the national inquiry heard, is, quite frankly, underground. The number of indigenous women who are trafficked interjurisdictionally within a province, through other provinces and across international borders should be shocking. I have heard that the number is large.
The Six Nations is also one of the largest reserves in the country. If you're looking only at a first nation reserve, it has over 17,000 members, and 10,000 of them reside in a fairly urban context, so it's not actually surprising, when you look at it from a per capita basis, that this might be a truth. In terms of what's happening in your neck of the woods, I can't directly respond to what the issues are, but it doesn't surprise me that it would be a community that puts forward what's happening. Trafficking does happen.
I want to be clear. ALS is not pro-trafficking. We are not saying that there shouldn't be laws in place and that there shouldn't be enforcement of laws that address trafficking. What we are suggesting is that the conflation between trafficking and sex work, and not having distinguishable or clear definitions of some of the words within the act itself, is problematic and causes life and liberty issues for those who are engaging in sex work.