I'm delighted to be here today. Hello to everybody.
I really welcome the opportunity to address the standing committee. I have been asked by the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action to be a resource to the committee on the international situation with respect to trafficking in persons, despite the fact that the organization, at this point, has yet to take a position on how to deal with these issues.
I have until recently been the special adviser to the Swedish government on human trafficking, and as such have acted internationally in the EU and in other regional organizations.
Today I will focus specifically on trafficking in persons for sexual purposes, but I'd be happy to take questions on other forms of trafficking should the members so wish. I can also answer questions in French,
if someone wishes to address me in French.
Every year, there are estimates of numbers of victims of trafficking going from somewhere between 700,000 individuals to 4 million. It is difficult to estimate, but what we do know is that the majority of the victims are women and girls, and the majority of those victims are recruited, transported, marketed, and purchased by individual buyers, procurers, traffickers, and members of organized crime networks, within countries and across national borders, for the specific purpose of sexual exploitation in the prostitution industry. Of course, trafficking takes place for other purposes as well. Women and girls are sold into domestic servitude and are trafficked as a result of forced marriages or for the purpose of forced marriages. We also know that in situations of armed conflict, national disasters, and social and economic crises, women are doubly victimized by traffickers and those who profit and derive pleasure from their sexual victimization.
We have to keep in mind that trafficking in persons for sexual purposes is a gender-specific crime and a serious barrier to gender equality. In order to succeed in our efforts to counter trafficking in human beings, we must recognize that full gender equality and equal participation of women and men in all fields of society cannot be brought about as long as some women and children, mostly girls, are victims of trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes.
Following the international human rights instruments of the past fifty years, including the CEDAW and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, we must discuss trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes in the context of sexual slavery and as incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person. We must recognize it as a crime, and we have to see it as a serious impairment to women's rights to obtain full citizenship and live life without violence.
It is essential to understand that there is a link between prostitution locally and trafficking in persons for sexual purposes nationally and globally. One of the most important prerequisites for trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes is the existence of local prostitution markets, where men are able and willing to purchase women and children for sexual exploitation and the production of pornography. These markets are easily expandable, and there is always room for the traffickers and procurers to create new demands.
The demands of the buyers also constantly shift and change. Those who frequent the brothels, the strip clubs, the licensed massage parlours, and the licensed escort agencies, as well as street corners across Canada and elsewhere, want unlimited access to a varied supply of women and girls from different countries, cultures, and background. This constant demand for new merchandise dictates the trade in women and girls. We know from the experience in Sweden that good prevention measures, adequate protection for and assistance to victims, vigilant enforcement of procuring and trafficking in legislation, as well as a prohibition on the purchase of sexual services function as deterrents for the establishment of traffickers and are necessary factors to eliminate these crimes.
Other reasons why women are vulnerable are, of course, poverty, the modernization of and ideas about the subordination of women and girls, as well as inadequate protection of their human rights. Women and girls who live under unequal and oppressive economic, social, legal, and political conditions in Canada, as well as in countries of origin, are particularly vulnerable to trafficking in human beings domestically or internationally. Traffickers, procurers, and buyers exploit to their advantage the fact that many women and girls who are victims of trafficking in human beings come from the most oppressed and vulnerable groups in society, are economically marginalized, and are often victims of prior male sexual violence.
The perpetrators also benefit greatly from the fact that women of colour and indigenous women face additional levels of violence and oppression because of racism. These women and girls are recruited for trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes specifically because of an absence of real, reasonable alternatives.
I have a number of recommendations that I'm going to go through for the committee. First of all, it is important to say that all legislation, policies, and anti-trafficking measures must be based on an understanding of gender equality in human rights, as has been expressed in the international obligations that Canada has signed onto under the UN protocol on trafficking, article 6 of the women's convention, and articles 34 and 35 of the children's convention.
I would argue that the present legislation in Canada on trafficking in persons lacks full protection of the victims, because in the United Nations protocol there is a paragraph included that states that you also have to look at the abuse of a person's vulnerability as an element of the trafficking in persons legislation, and ensure that all legislation is consistent with this. We know--and I know from experience, having worked on this for 15 years--that most victims these days are not directly forced or kidnapped. Most victims are in fact, in the context of trafficking, being abused because they are already vulnerable, either economically, through family ties, or for other reasons. This is not in the legislation. You will find, as many countries in Europe have found, that there are very few cases that can be prosecuted under the legislation unless you put that in. We know that from experience in Sweden.
I must also say I am quite horrified about the fact that the exotic dancer visa still exists. In 2000, I testified to the intergovernmental working group on trafficking human beings here in Canada, and I was particularly clear on telling the group that traffickers are business people. They will look at legal options to traffic women into countries. The exotic dancer visas have been used in Iceland, in Luxembourg, and in other countries. As soon as they have been allowed, we have seen an enormous increase in trafficking in human beings. Luxembourg removed their visas and immediately the trafficking of Russian women into the night clubs in Luxembourg ceased. We also know from Iceland that women who have been trafficked on exotic dancer visas into Iceland have been retrafficked to Canada and vice versa. I urge the government to immediately cut this off--never again.
I also want to point out that the United Nations trafficking protocol does not cover only international trafficking; it also covers domestic trafficking. We know in Canada that girls, especially aboriginal women and girls, are trafficked across the country from one city to another. The pimps want to maximize their profit. That's why they traffic. And we need to note that. They are trafficked from the local prostitution markets to others, where men purchase them.
I think it's absolutely necessary, if you want to succeed in combatting prostitution and trafficking in human beings, that you decriminalize those who are the victims of these crimes, and that goes for women locally in prostitution or women who are trafficked into Canada and who are used in local prostitution. In this day and age, my friends, you are one of the few countries in which women are still criminalized in prostitution, and I think it's time to remove that measure.
Of course, it's important to implement prevention measures. I won't talk too much about that, other than to say that you need to do it from a gender equality point of departure, and you need to focus on the demand and discourage it. Otherwise you will not succeed. I'd be happy to tell you more about what we have done in Sweden and in Scandinavia.
I think it's absolutely necessary to include in the Criminal Code the specific offence that criminalizes the demand for trafficking and prostitution, as we have done in Sweden. We know, because we have this legislation, that we have the fewest cases of trafficking human beings in the whole of Europe. It is functioning as a deterrent for traffickers, because traffickers want to make profits, and the profit is in the money bags of the buyers. If you make it difficult for the buyers, the traffickers will go elsewhere. I can tell you more about that later.
I think it's absolutely necessary to ensure effective implementation of legislation on trafficking and issues around it. So the procuring legislation and the bawdy house legislation need to be implemented. You also need to look much more closely at your legalized prostitution industry in Canada. I'm Canadian myself, but I'll pretend I'm Swedish today. Then I can be--I'm Canadian and Swedish. I have dual nationality.
We have seen, very clearly, that if you don't educate the law enforcement, the police, the judges, the prosecutors, and the immigration officials, not only on the legislation but to give them an understanding of the victims and where the victims come from, you won't succeed. And these women are going to be used.
I think it's necessary to conduct a Canada-wide investigation into the legal prostitution industry, and I mean the licensed escort agencies and massage parlours. Look in the yellow pages in Ottawa, and who will you see there? We know that escort services are the main place where women are trafficked. When you license them, you are in fact acting as a sort of pimp. We have seen that in other countries, where they have removed these licences, the trafficking of women, internally and externally, has diminished.
This is a suggestion I will give to you that I think is very good. It's also important to appoint and adequately fund an independent national rapporteur on trafficking in human beings, with the mandate to investigate the situation of trafficking in persons in and to Canada and to give recommendations to federal and provincial governments, to public authorities, and to civil societies in annual reports.
We have that. Holland has it, Belgium has it, and Nepal, where I worked with this national repertory...has it. It is absolutely essential, if you want to understand the situation, that you have somebody who is monitoring it.
I want to say something about the visas, as the sisters here did. We have a long experience with visas. In all of Europe, the temporary visas are only given if the victims testify, except in Italy and Belgium, where they have a visa system of giving so-called social permits, which means that women do not have to testify. They just have to be in contact with social organizations, with NGOs that work on this, in order for them to get better physically and psychologically, and then they can, if they want to, consider testifying later. We don't have that in Sweden, and it's a problem.
Finally, we need, of course, to fund those equality-seeking organizations that are going to work with the victims; otherwise this is never going to work. In Sweden, over five years, we have given lots of money to different women's organizations, human rights organizations, and victim protection agencies--battered women's shelters and so forth--to work on this.
Thank you.