Yes, thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm Detective Constable Michelle Holm of the Vancouver Police Department. It is my pleasure to meet with you today to discuss the actions being taken by the Vancouver Police Department to combat human trafficking and share some of our experiences with the committee. I'm here to offer some insight as to what it's like for a police officer to investigate a potential human trafficking file and the challenges faced in dealing with victims who are forced to work in the ugly world of the sex trade.
On March 30, 2006, The Province newspaper reported, and I quote:
Canada's first trial of human trafficking heard yesterday how a Chinese woman was forced to work as a prostitute for long hours seven days a week to pay the man who brought her to Vancouver $11,000 a month. The petite 33-year-old also told how her captor beat her, kept her fake passport and obtained fake identification for her, virtually keeping her a prisoner for almost 18 months. And she told how her “customers” sometimes raped and beat her. The woman...told court she was lured to Canada...with the promise of a waitressing job that would pay her 10 times what she earned in China. She hoped to send money home to her husband...and two children as well as parents and siblings. She got a rude awakening when [the accused] brought her from the Vancouver airport to the massage parlour he ran...and then showed her her new home, a storage room in the basement of his nearby house. ...[The woman broke] into uncontrollable sobs that prompted the judge to call a recess.
I read you this excerpt so you will have an idea about the type of victim we deal with in these cases, and the challenges that face us when we conduct our investigations.
Our first job is to locate the victim and to ensure the person's safety. This can be accomplished by proactive policing by officers sensitive to the crime of human trafficking and by providing them with safe and secure housing in Canada. Investigators will often determine the full elements of the offence by liaising with authorities in the victim's home country, where the family tends to be.
The second job we have is to get the victim to trust us enough to tell us their story and, most importantly, to tell it to us truthfully. This is a huge hurdle, given the convincing that is often done by the trafficker, who tells victims that police in Canada are not to be trusted and that the victims will be thrown in jail if discovered. Unfortunately, this opinion often supports a victim's pre-existing beliefs about the police in their home country, where corruption may actually be an unfortunate reality for them.
The third, and often most difficult, part of our job is victim-witness management, meaning simply to maintain the victim until the court process, which can often be many months or even years down the road. Obviously the investigation is important, but the witness is crucial. At the end of the day, if the human trafficking victim is not willing to testify, a charge cannot successfully be pursued, and the trafficker will continue to operate.
We need the witnesses to be healthy both physically and psychologically, not just because it's the right thing to do in helping these victims reclaim their lives, but also, from our point of view, because we need a healthy and strong witness who can ultimately give credible evidence against a trafficker in future court proceedings. It is not enough to just compile intelligence and rescue victims; if we want to make a dent in this horrific crime, we need to ensure that the traffickers are brought to justice. That requires asking the victims of trafficking to stand up in court and tell their story. That is a difficult task for anyone, let alone a victim who feels out of place in our culture, where there are language and cultural barriers and where they've been enslaved for a period of time and sexually assaulted on a continual basis.
Human trafficking is a very lucrative crime. Consider this: drugs can be transported and consumed only once; women and children involved in the sex trade can be sold over and over and over again. They're an asset to be used indefinitely by the trafficker under what has been called “debt bondage”.
In addressing the victims' issues, police can be assisted by victim services groups who are sensitive to the needs of the trafficked victim and who must have the language skills available to address those needs. Using these groups in this way would assist the police to concentrate on the very complicated and time-consuming investigation that often awaits them. Thus, NGOs and police must learn to work together and trust each other to protect victims of trafficking.
Since the investigation involving Michael Ng, the first person charged in Canada for human trafficking, the Vancouver Police Department has made it a priority to locate other victims of human trafficking. I personally focus my efforts on bawdy house investigations involving brothels that are being run from massage parlours and, more secretly, in residential communities, a type of operation that has become a real problem in the Vancouver area.
It is important to note that not all women found working in these underground brothels are victims of trafficking. In August of this year, we executed a search warrant at an exclusive west side house where eight Malaysian women were found to be working as prostitutes. Police charged the male running the operation with keeping a common bawdy house and living on the avails of prostitution. We interviewed every woman found in this house and determined that one of them was possibly a true victim of trafficking.
We believed so strongly in her story that she was immediately placed into a safe house and arrangements were made for investigators to travel to Kuala Lumpur to liaise with the local authorities there in ensuring her family's safety and also to corroborate the victim's story for court. Our investigation there determined that this victim wasn't a victim at all but a party to the offence that made many Malaysians a lot of money while involved in the sex trade in Vancouver.
It was necessary for us to travel there to complete our investigation and uncover this truth. I tell you about this investigation that is still before the courts so that you might understand the cost and intricacies involved in these types of files and just how seriously police do take this matter.
The temporary residence permit now offered to victims is an excellent step in assisting true victims of this horrific crime. My only comment is that each case needs to be investigated fully, with the victim's safety always of utmost priority to investigators. This is ultimately a costly and complicated process due to the barriers I have mentioned.
Now I will hand it over to my sergeant, Sergeant Matt Kelly, to discuss further issues and recommendations.