Sure.
Honourable members, this committee is in a strategic position to create a Canadian response to the evil of sexual trafficking. I believe you can bolster the fight for human rights on the globe and ensure the beauty, freedom, and value of all within its sphere of influence. And I want to assure you that we're praying for you.
All of the international leaders of the Salvation Army met in 2004 and identified the abolition of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation as an international priority for the Salvation Army and the world. With that international commitment, we've set our sights on Canadian soil and how we can fight this thing in our own country. And our paths meet here.
We've set out to combat sexual trafficking on the ground. Several obstacles and persistent questions have emerged that I'd like to discuss with you, and I want to suggest some potential answers for this committee.
On a special note, I've noticed that everyone I've met who seems to work at a grassroots level and in policy on ending sexual trafficking—in the RCMP, victims services, and grassroots NGOs on the ground—suffer from an assault of paralysis when it comes to this issue. It seems so complex, hidden, and secret—really just evil—and this great paralysis tends to happens. I wanted to assure you that the time for paralysis is over. We don't have that option anymore. This is a prevalent issue in the world, and it's an evil that I believe Canada is in a position to stop. So I want to tell you that I believe we can progress on this thing, we can attack it, and we can actually take some ground. I don't believe it's hopeless.
So I want to suggest that the struggle itself is worth having, and I also want to come to you with a strong conviction. I often work in desperate places, and I have this strong conviction, as does the Salvation Army, that light is more powerful than darkness and that God is on our side. So be encouraged; we've employed heaven. I've gone straight to the top on this one and asked the Lord for His strength. You are not alone in this.
For the specifics, there will be a formal written paper, but my comments will be a bit more informal. It tends to be what I do.
But without oversimplifying, I think this monster has two heads. I want to suggest that we can attack both of those heads separately with a one-two punch.
So the first head of the monster of sexual trafficking in Canada is the actual victims, the actual survivors of human trafficking, and the provision for those survivors, both internationally and domestically. Trafficked victims are currently, in our country, being sexually exploited every day. We know this for a fact; this is happening right now.
Because of their intrinsic value, we must provide a place where survivors of sexual trafficking have access to their basic human rights. The UN Palermo Protocol, which Canada signed, has already made it clear what that looks like. In article 6, it recommends “implementing measures to provide for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims of trafficking in persons”, including appropriate housing; counselling and information; legal rights; language translation; medical, psychological, and material assistance; and employment, educational, and training opportunities.
In Canada, we are not fulfilling this protocol. But there are several ways we can honour the protocol and provide these basic human rights with expertise and expedience. This isn't hard.
Punch number one on this head is to create immediate federal funding for safe and supportive structures for sexually trafficked survivors. We can't do this too soon. There are many traffic victims who do not have the safety or security that they require in Canada, and this has multiple effects. I won't go into all of them, but one effect is it can re-victimize the trafficked person. Another effect is that it gives power to the traffickers, because they offer provision that we don't. So the traffickers actually have power, and we give it to them by not providing reasonable things.
On the ground in Vancouver where I work, through partnerships and grassroots initiatives, including—and catch this, it's exciting—faith-based communities and feminist movements working together on this issue. This is how important it is—our coming together on this common issue to offer provision for the survivors of human trafficking in Canada.
We lack the funding to secure even the basic level of response right now. We have the will, we have the expertise, but we don't have the funding to do it. These victims deserve more than this.
Because of the nature of sexual trafficking and the desperate effects on its victims, it's critical to respond with specialized and culturally appropriate care. Right now, if a human traffic victim who's been sexually exploited surfaces, which has happened many times, the only option that exists for them to is to find shelter in existing shelter situations.
The problem with this, particularly in my city, Vancouver--and I can't speak to all the rest of Canada on the grassroots--is that there's no room. There's just no room in the shelters. There's a lack of funding, so that I can't even hold a bed in a shelter because that negates the funding for that shelter. So there's no place for the victim to go. I've been housing victims in people's homes, literally, because there's no place for them to go. The shelters that do have room aren't appropriate for victims of sexual trafficking. They're simply not appropriate.
So this kind of thing makes it even more difficult to get to the hidden places of trafficking. What happens is that these sexually trafficked victims, particularly, are so traumatized and they've been controlled by fear and violence for so long that they don't have any trust issues, and by nature they are suspicious of any kind of authority, or any kind of structure, or of even any kind of governmental support. If we provide adequate care and provision for those traffic victims, I believe we can free some of them enough that they would begin to share some of the secrets of the trade, which would benefit us in combating sexual trafficking more than we could ever imagine.
So provision is the left punch, if you would.
The right punch of this monster, and of this head, is to create a new piece of federal legislation that is specifically designed to give victims of sexual trafficking visa classification in our country. In March of this year the CIC announced that trafficked persons are eligible for a temporary resident permit. While we're glad they're making an effort, on the ground we've found the TRP inadequate.
First, while it would regularize a person's status in the country, it gives them access to nothing beyond interim federal help. So they're given status in Canada, but no means to survive. They're not eligible for work unless they're granted the longer permit option of six months, which has never happened. Second, the minimum of 120 days under the visa is too short a time for a survivor to recover and plan the next steps of her life.
Third, the women are still being criminalized in the very classification of this permit. It's designed for those in violation of IRPA and it serves to criminalize them as violators rather than as victims. Victims of human trafficking are victims, not criminals, and we need to recognize that legally. In order to make this happen, we'll need a new piece of legislation that creates a specialized visa for trafficked persons.
Additionally, on the ground level--this is just an aside--it's virtually impossible to find anyone who knows the TRP guidelines or how to go about applying for this permit. Literally, basic questions like how I apply, what's covered, and who do I contact cannot be answered. And anyone I have found with the expertise, which is one person in all of Vancouver so far, recommends not using the TRP because of its inherent lack of provision. Clearly, I think we could do better, and we must.
The Salvation Army is committed to partnering with you to ensure the proper safe and supportive care needed for the survivors of human trafficking. That's one head of the monster, this victim approach, the survivors and provision for survivors. It's a two-handed punch, right? The left hand is provision for their basic needs, as the protocol suggested, through release of funding federally; and the right hand punch is legal status and a new piece of federal legislation.
The other head of the ugly monster is the area of demand. What I mean by demand is the men who buy and profit from the sexual exploitation of women and children. There are two essential left-right punches we can do for this head.
The first is to recognize that prostitution is a form of sexual slavery that allows trafficking to flourish and to grow. This is essential.
The latest UN special report of the Special Rapporteur, Sigma Huda, on the human rights aspect of the victims of trafficking in persons makes it very clear that legalizing prostitution is intimately connected with likely increases in human trafficking. I quote:
...we should consider the link between trafficking and prostitution and recognize that prostitution is in itself a form of trafficking as defined in the Palermo Protocol since it is a form of sexual exploitation. Even if no visible external force is used, the consent of the victim as stated in Article 3 b of the Protocol is irrelevant. It cannot be said that prostitution is a voluntary process with no compelling or propelling factors such as the question of survival or of no other options being available to women that recruiters, traffickers and pimps take advantage of.
I've lived and worked on the streets of Vancouver's downtown east side for several years. Along with other organizations, we befriend women and children and youth who've found themselves victimized and sexually assaulted and who find themselves selling their bodies on the streets. I can tell you that story after story, woman after woman, they have all come to desperate and horrible places in their lives. They've been coerced, tricked, persuaded, beaten, and threatened to keep doing what they do. They live a degrading and horrific reality every single day. Let's stop using terms that normalize prostitution and that cast prostitution as just a form of work. Do you want sex work to be something young females should aspire to? Do you want your own daughters to contemplate sex work as a career choice?
As a committee, please do not make the mistake of separating prostitution from the equality of women. The condition for women who find themselves in sex slavery on our streets will not improve by moving them inside to turn their tricks or by setting up cubicles outside to do their business. They deserve more than a change in terminology and a quick external fix. We have to restore the dignity they were created with, by calling prostitution what it is: a sex crime against women. They have value. I tell them that daily, but I wonder if my country will agree.
The UN report frames this position in a context of human rights. I quote:
It has been wrongly assumed in some quarters that a human rights approach to trafficking is somehow inconsistent with the use of the criminal law to punish prostitute-users. This conclusion can only be based upon the assumed premise that men have a human right to engage in the use of prostituted persons. This premise should be rejected. Men do not have a human right to engage in the use of prostituted persons. In some domestic legal systems, men have been granted a legal right to engage in the use of prostituted persons, but, as suggested above, this right...[is] in direct conflict with the human rights of persons in prostitution, the vast majority of whom have been subjected to the illicit means...and are, therefore, victims of trafficking.
To combat demand, it is imperative that we make it culturally unacceptable to buy women for sex. Men who buy women for sex need to be arrested and specific programs for male sexual offenders be increased.
In the Salvation Army one such program exists already and has for ten years. Prostitution offender programs are commonly known as john schools across the country. We consider them a success in educating and therefore reducing the demand for purchased sex from those who participate in the program. It's here again that prostitution and sex trafficking cross paths, as we find that those who purchase sex are buying women from domestically trafficked places as well as internationally. The message must continue to get out that buying sex for money, food, or shelter is exploitation and is therefore not acceptable on any kind of level.
Men who have sex with a child in prostitution are committing child sexual abuse and need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If we are serious about the rights of women and children who are sexually exploited in our country, we need to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16, at a bare minimum—if we're serious about rights for people in Canada.
That's the first punch. It was a big one; it might have been the right.
The second punch at this monster is to criminalize prostitute users and decriminalize victims of sexual assault. Make no mistake, this action is about the equality of women. The UN recommends that while prostitute users be criminalized, prostitutes not be; that they be treated as victims, not as criminals. Sweden has adopted this model because of their commitment to the value of women and children in their society, and their success on this issue is something that Canada, as a progressive nation ourselves, could easily adapt.
I quote from Gunilla Ekberg, a Canadian who helped form the Swedish policy:
As with all laws, the Law has a normative function. It is a concrete and tangible expression of the belief that in Sweden women and children are not for sale. It effectively dispels men’s self-assumed right to buy women and children for prostitution....
Consider this statement by a former prostitute, now an advocate for women's rights:
We, the survivors of prostitution and trafficking gathered at this press conference today, declare that prostitution is violence against women.
Women in prostitution do not wake up one day and “choose” to be prostitutes. It is chosen for us by poverty, past sexual abuse, the pimps who take advantage of our vulnerabilities, and the men who buy us for the sex of prostitution.
The Salvation Army is deeply committed to the intrinsic worth of women and is committed to the abolition of sexual slavery.
I'll end with one final quote. At one time, Martin Luther King, Jr., ignited a nation with this quote:
Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” Vanity asks the question, “Is it popular?” But, conscience asks the question, “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.
I believe that time has come for Canada. We can choose to do what is right for the survivors of sexual trafficking by providing safe, supportive, and legal refuge for them in Canada. Let's do what's right for Canada by choosing to call prostitution what it is: sexual violence against women. Let's stand up as a nation to say we won't tolerate the sexual exploitation of women and children in our country any longer. God grant it that in Canada women and children are not for sale.
