Status of Women Committee on Nov. 21st, 2006

[Deborah Isaacs]

I think it has to be a combination. You cannot do just one. I mean, we don't have access to all the people.

I'm on an NGO-CIC immigration working group for separated children. I know that what's happening there is that they're just looking at refugees. They're not even considering victims of trafficking in their counts. The way they're counting those separated children is as the primary claimants in refugee claims. This is leaving a whole wide area not even counted. There's no way of checking.

Also, when people are met coming in with so-called relatives, friends, and so on, there's not always a check at the border on whether these people are really what they say they are.

I went to The Bay once in Vancouver to get a bathing suit, and a clerk there told me that they have this man who comes in, and he's very often with different young women. He seems to have a lot of nieces he's buying this skimpy clothing for. They're coming to him sort of as relatives, and nobody checks on it. It's a problem.

We also have in Vancouver the Honduran children and youth. It's a major problem. These children are still being criminalized as drug dealers, because they're in the drug industry. They have debt bondage, and of course the question of consent for children should never even be considered.

So it's a problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mrs. Mathyssen, be very brief.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

In your presentation you made reference to the fact that the guidelines for TRPs were put together but there was no consultation done. As a result, there are gaps. Could you respond to that statement. What are the gaps?

You also continued to talk about the special needs of children. Could you comment on what we need to do to help children?

[Deborah Isaacs]

I mentioned a few of the gaps in my presentation, like the ones about the TRPs only for visas, which would not give services, or the problems of people who want to return home. In reality, they're still going to need services. If they don't have a TRP because they're going home, how are they going to have legalization for services? Some of the countries take a long time to get their papers, since one of the problems is that traffickers take their papers. And certain countries are not cooperative.

For children, provinces like Ontario stop care at 16. These kids are very sensitive and they need a lot. You can't expect them to behave like adults after such traumatic events. They have to be cared for as children.

There's a lot more, but I don't have time.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

So child protection should be extended.

[Deborah Isaacs]

Right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

You made reference, Sister Isaacs, to the British Columbia plan, and we have asked the British Columbia human trafficking response initiative individuals to come before the committee. We're hoping that we're going to be able to get them to come as well.

Moving on to our second round of questioning, which is now limited to five minutes, we'll go to Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Sorry I missed your presentation. I was delayed coming in from Toronto.

I just need to ask a couple of things before I ask my final question. Are children being trafficked into Canada, within Canada, or out of Canada? I'm trying to get a handle on—

[Deborah Isaacs]

All three. All of the above.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

All three. And are they children of all ages?

[Deborah Isaacs]

All ages.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm just trying to get a handle on that aspect. We've talked a great deal about adults and young women and so on, but we haven't talked about young men, for that matter, or children. That is something that, at least before today, we hadn't gotten into too much.

In previous discussions with other witnesses, we've talked a great deal about the issue of immigration and the interim visa not being long enough. I had suggested providing a more long-term visa, maybe for three years, and allowing people to actually apply for landed status during that period, on a work visa. And then, of course, there are services.

I know you were giving some answers to my colleague. For children, how do we identify? They're much more vulnerable, easier to hide, and easier to abuse. It's much harder for them to break away. What programs are in place now for children, whether they're in or out, if we're even lucky enough to identify them?

[Deborah Isaacs]

There's very little. In B.C., the ministry takes charge, the Ministry of Social—

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

If they're under 16.

[Deborah Isaacs]

In B.C. it's under 19. It's one of the only provinces where it's up to the age of 19.

Robin Pike, by the way, is also the supervisor of the specialized migrant services team for separated children in B.C. This is a team that started with the boat and marine arrivals in 1999. She was chosen because of her expertise already with trafficked children, as we had some even before all this. She'll be able to do some answering there.

But there are very few programs.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

So what happens? If a child is found, is the child put into a foster home?

[Deborah Isaacs]

In B.C. they're put into foster homes. They sometimes have to evade lawyers who are trying to find them, lawyers who are working for the traffickers. They have to use the privacy for their own protection.

In Manitoba, Marymound has a special sexual treatment unit for internally trafficked girls. Some of the provinces don't have any programs and some of them do. But it takes special treatment to help these children.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Does anyone on the panel have an idea of what it looks like across the country, in terms of what services and programs are available for anybody under 18, let's say?

[Deborah Isaacs]

I know in Quebec there's a problem for children because so far they have been taken under what used to be SARIMM but now is Preda. There's a legal problem there because Preda was never taking legal guardianship of the children, so there was no legal guardianship of children involved. Many of them--

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Okay. I just want to get a sense of where we were.

[Deborah Isaacs]

It's been haphazard.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Perrin, are you trying to...?

[Benjamin Perrin]

I just want to add, in Alberta, the PChIP legislation, the Protection of Children Involved in Prostitution, is another piece that the committee would want to look at because it does take child protection quite a bit further than most of the other jurisdictions.

With respect to your point about stories or evidence of children involved in trafficking to Canada, there's a story, a case, that we found. Ross McInnis, who is formerly of the vice-squad in Calgary, documented in his book a young girl taken from Cambodia, through Toronto, and then down into New York, who was horrifically abused the whole way.

The problem with respect to children is actually locating them, because they're typically not in the same venues that police can investigate, like brothels or massage parlours or those sorts of things. That's the main drawback.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That was my main question, yes.

[Benjamin Perrin]

Absolutely.

Also, just to briefly mention, since you raised the issue of the duration for the visa, I think three years would not be consistent with what other countries do. We'd create some odd incentives perhaps. Our suggestion is that in keeping with international practices, you have a sufficient reflection period, which is really designed to allow those individuals to decide whether they are going to claim refugee status, make some other application, or leave. And 120 days is actually quite good compared to other jurisdictions. If that were all there was, we'd be quite concerned, though. It's really going to come down to how willing the officials are to extend that in appropriate circumstances. The two grounds—I'll just briefly wrap up—are not just willingness to cooperate with prosecution, which we think is quite important, but also in severe cases, where, for whatever reason, that individual can't return. It's actually a balance that's struck in Canadian guidelines that, for example, the Americans don't have.