Status of Women Committee on Dec. 5th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'd like to call the meeting to order. This is meeting number 27 of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

I welcome our committee members and our witnesses this morning. As you know, we've been doing a very important study on human trafficking. We thank you for your participation today and look forward to hearing from you.

We have witnesses from the Federation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada. Joan Atkinson is a co-director and Sue Wilson is also a co-director. Welcome.

From International Justice Mission Canada, we have Jamie McIntosh, who is the executive director, and one of his associates, Hiroko Sawai. I apologize if I didn't pronounce the name properly.

We also have, from the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, Gunilla Ekberg, researcher on trafficking in human beings. Welcome.

If you could keep your remarks to ten minutes, that would give the committee an opportunity, after everyone has presented, to go through a question and answer period.

Mr. McIntosh, would you like to begin?

[Jamie McIntosh, Executive Director, International Justice Mission Canada]

Thank you for asking me to testify before the Committee today. My name is Jamie McIntosh and I am the Executive Director of International Justice Mission Canada.

In its myriad forms, human trafficking is an egregious assault on human rights, human dignity, and human freedom. One current manifestation is forced labour slavery, where women, men, and children are frequently held in exploitive and brutal conditions from which they might never be released.

During a typical IJM investigation a few years ago, I encountered a young woman who was forced to crush rocks with a small sledgehammer for 12 hours a day, each day, in the blazing South Asian sun. Her slave masters cared not that, at the time, she was about eight months pregnant. Thanks in part to cooperative local officials and a contingent of British, American, and Canadian lawyers—one of whom is in the room with us today—who volunteered their expertise, we were able to successfully assist in an intervention that resulted in her immediate release, along with the release of 37 others, leading to the start of a new life for them.

According to credible estimates, this one woman's daily experience is suggestive of the plight of 27 million others who are held in present-day slavery. Shockingly, that figure represents about 10,000 more souls than were extracted from Africa in 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade.

On a recent visit to Africa, Governor General Michaëlle Jean reflected on the horrors of the enslavement of her ancestors. She said:

This doesn't concern just the descendants of slaves. There are still children who are enslaved. I know that slavery is still a reality today.

In fact, as brutal as forced labour slavery is—and it is brutal indeed—sexual slavery is perhaps even more horrific. One young woman who I have been privileged to meet had been held as a slave in a brick kiln until one day, at the age of 14, she courageously fled her situation in pursuit of a better life. She got farther than most. She made it to a train station, where four kindly women befriended her and offered her some tea. The tea had been laced with a drug, and this young woman found herself coming to, a few days later, in what turned out to be a brothel, where she was beaten with plastic pipes, whipped with electrical cords, burned with cigarettes, and forced to give service to between 15 and 25 men each and every day. This hellish nightmare went on for a period of about three years, until, by the grace of God, IJM investigators were able to find her in that situation and mobilize an effective operation to secure her release from her captors, who tormented her day after day. Sadly, this beautiful young woman was one of the estimated 10 million women and girls who are held against their will, trafficked into sexual slavery, whose lot in life is, simply put, to be serially raped for profit.

International Justice Mission is a human rights organization that rescues victims like these two women, victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery, and oppression. We serve in an overseas context where local authorities cannot always be relied upon for relief. IJM provides a direct operational field response to individual cases of abuse by conducting professional investigations to document the abuse and mobilizing intervention efforts on behalf of the individual victims. These cases are referred to us by the relief and development communities serving amongst the poor overseas who witness the abuses but are powerless to intervene.

IJM has field offices in 13 countries in South Asia where slavery is prevalent: in Africa; Latin America; and Southeast Asia, including countries like Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines, where sex trafficking today is a pronounced reality.

Since 1997, IJM agents have spent thousands of hours infiltrating human trafficking operations and working carefully with government authorities around the world to bring rescue to the victims and accountability to the perpetrators.

Such international cooperation can lead to effective action. In 2003, for example, IJM conducted a three-week undercover operation in the Cambodian village of Svay Pak, just outside of Phnom Penh. We identified 45 children under the age of 15 who were being offered for sexual exploitation, often to foreign sex tourists, including, sadly, Canadians.

Thankfully, Canadians are also helping to combat this form of violent sexual abuse and exploitation. On March 29, culminating from this investigation, in an operation conducted jointly with the Cambodian National Police, 37 girls were rescued from the brothels, including nine who were between the ages of 5 and 10. Toronto resident and former UN police officer, Jasper Ayelazuno, who is with us today, provided logistical support on this particular operation. This led to 13 arrests and 6 convictions, including a 20-year prison sentence for the brothel keeper.

IJM has since developed an ongoing relationship with the authorities in Cambodia, providing training to police officers in investigative techniques and in conducting raids in sex trafficking situations. Staff Sergeant Joanne Verbeek of the Toronto Police Service has provided invaluable assistance in these initiatives over the past two years through volunteer deployments.

Our collaboration with Cambodian authorities has, in the past two and a half years, led to the rescue of 147 individual victims of commercial sexual exploitation, and 59 arrests of perpetrators, of whom 34 were convicted of their crimes. Through this type of direct field experience, IJM is gaining, I believe, some precise insights about the nature of the problem, along with some lessons about concrete steps that actually prove effective in combatting human trafficking.

We would like to comment on what we perceive as some of the greatest needs in Canada's efforts to combat trafficking. The four areas--and we will only highlight the first one in the interest of time--are enforcement, education and training, domestic awareness, and the development of a national action plan.

Enforcement. We believe that the greatest single gap in Canadian and international efforts in combatting trafficking is in the enforcement of existing laws. Our anti-trafficking laws need to be vigorously enforced to provide any real protection for the victims. In fact, traffickers are deterred only when the force of law adds sufficient risk of criminal sanctions to their cost calculation. Simply put, they only view these young women and girls as commodities to be trafficked for their own profit, and they will exploit them no matter to what extent, as long as they feel they can get away with it at the end of the day. Unless they feel the weight of the law, unless traffickers are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced, they will not be deterred.

Canada's efforts to combat trafficking cannot be focused only on those trafficking cases that find their way into Canada, and I think this is an important understanding that we need to grasp. According to RCMP figures, an estimated 600 to 800 victims are trafficked into Canada annually, and another 1,500 to 2,200 are trafficked through Canada into the United States, whereas there are some 700,000 trafficking victims worldwide, according to the UN. It's like comparing a teaspoon to a tsunami.

Canada can only effectively fight human trafficking by disrupting the global networks that bring the victims and the perpetrators into Canada, and to do so we must understand the counter-trafficking challenges in the countries where the victims are trafficked.

Without resources dedicated to assist in international investigations, Canadian law enforcement is not adequately positioned to ensure actual enforcement of existing extraterritorial laws that pertain to Canadian offenders abroad. A strategic redeployment of resources is necessary for Canada to assist developing nations in confronting the global scourge of human trafficking.

For instance, Canada's provisions on sex tourism had been in force for eight years before a single conviction was obtained: it was still open season on these children. This was not due to the lack of professionalism or dedication by Canadian law enforcement, but rather a natural consequence of the lack of forward deployment of dedicated investigators to counter Canadians engaged in the heinous criminal sexual exploitation of children abroad.

The only conviction to date under these provisions is that of Donald Bakker. In that particular case, Vancouver police investigators engaged in a collaborative effort with IJM to piece together the elements of Donald Bakker's crimes against trafficked children in Cambodia, little prepubescent girls who he was torturing while videotaping himself doing this to these girls. Without the evidence IJM had gathered in counter-trafficking operations in Svay Pak, the Vancouver Police Department has stated that it would have been extremely difficult to have established a case against Bakker. In all likelihood, his crimes against children would have gone simply uncharged.

What good are the laws that exist on the books if they aren't enforced for the most vulnerable in our society, these girls who are trafficked into these situations? Of course, without the Canadian authorities' exemplary efforts to hold Bakker accountable, IJM would not have had the ability to provide for his prosecution.

IJM's experience in the field demonstrates that sex trafficking is the ugliest and most disturbing, but also the most preventable, human-instigated disaster in our world today. The simple fact of the matter is this: sex trafficking only flourishes where it is tolerated by local law enforcement. The business of sex trafficking requires that perpetrators commit multiple offences of abduction, rape, assault, and false imprisonment, and that they do this openly, offering the victims to the public so that the customers can find them. If the customers can find them, the law enforcement can find them. But if they're being cut into the profits, they have no impetus to secure effective operations to ensure the detention of the perpetrators. Therefore, it can be shut down wherever there is the political will combined with the operational resources to do so.

This fundamental vulnerability underscores the critical importance of strengthening law enforcement efforts that lead to the successful prosecution and conviction of sex trafficking offenders, both in Canada and overseas.

I conclude with a final thought and story. Governor General Michaëlle Jean has just reminded us, when it comes to the present realities of slavery, that indifference is guilt. Indifference is a killer. These girls are trafficked and they're infected with HIV/AIDS because we're not getting there to help them. She continues, “Not only would we betray the people still living in those conditions...we would also be betraying ourselves”.

To shake us from any lingering complacency, I would like to conclude our time with a simple request. It comes from the courageous young woman whose story of sexual slavery I introduced you to earlier. What I didn't mention to you is that on her own initiative and at great risk to her own personal safety, she offered to lead us to other brothels where she knew girls were still being held and violated night after night. Some of the girls she led us to were literally held in brothels, in dungeons underground, held captive against their will. While we were able to rescue several other girls, who then led us to other girls whom we were able to release, some of her friends were nowhere to be found. Presumably, they had been moved to another location by the traffickers. When our time together was drawing to a close, this young woman urged me to share her story with Canadians, that they might use their influence and resources to set free other girls like her, perhaps even her missing friends. She implored me to ask us to do whatever we can.

This young woman cannot be here today. I'm a poor substitute, but I'm asking you on her behalf, on behalf of the some 10 million other girls and women like her, I'm asking you, the House of Commons and the entire country, to do whatever you can to rescue them. Thank you. Merci.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll hear now from Ms. Atkinson for the Federation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada.

[Sue Wilson, Co-director, Office of Systemic Justice, Federation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada]

I will actually be going first, if that is all right, Madam Chair.

This is good timing. Jamie has given us the big picture on a global scale, and we're going to focus in more tightly on details of what's happening in Canada.

Joan and I work together at a justice office for the Federation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada, and we're also members of a local anti-trafficking group in the London area. We're here today because members of our anti-trafficking group have accompanied trafficking survivors as they seek to free themselves from exploitation. In the process, we've learned a great deal about the strengths and weaknesses of the current temporary resident permit for trafficked persons.

I'll begin by speaking about some of the recommendations we have for the TRP, as well as the interview process that accompanies it.

One of the trafficking survivors whom we've accompanied is the only person in Canada to have received the TRP as a trafficked person. This permit is important in terms of its capacity to give quick status and recognition to trafficking survivors. However, when trafficking survivors take the risk to come forward, they need to know that the resources and supports are in place that will allow them to extricate themselves from the exploitation in which they've been living and working.

Currently these resources and supports are not in place. At an absolute minimum, this means that the initial TRP has to be for at least six months so that the survivor can get an open work permit. Without this open work permit, it's impossible to remove oneself from exploitation. Consider the experience of the woman who received the TRP. When she told the CIC officer that she needed to work, he told her that his only option was to renew her exotic dancing visa, an option that left her extremely vulnerable to continued exploitation.

Furthermore, without this minimal protection, most trafficking survivors who are still in trafficking situations are simply too afraid to apply for the TRP. It does not seem realistic to them that they will be able to remove themselves from the exploitation in which they live and work and to do so in a way that protects their well-being as well as their family in their country of origin.

We consider other TRP supports such as language and job training to be critical because we are assuming that most trafficking survivors will need to make a transition to mainstream Canadian life. Obviously, if a survivor wishes to return to her country of origin, that option needs to be supported. However, the reality is, given the strong social stigma that trafficking survivors experience in their country of origin if they return, it's often not possible for a survivor to make a successful transition back to the home country. Another problem with return is the ongoing debt with which they will likely be burdened. For most trafficking survivors, a return to the country of origin would mean ongoing persecution, danger, and exploitation.

I'd like to make one more point about the interview process. As we've accompanied trafficking survivors to their interviews, we've experienced firsthand how important it is for trafficking survivors to be accompanied by a support person who understands the issues connected with human trafficking and who is able to help them organize their story in preparation for their interview with CIC. If a CIC official simply asks a trafficking survivor if they were controlled in their work situation, the survivor may not even understand the nuances of the word as it relates to her situation of work. It's important to have someone who can deconstruct the nuanced language.

Let me give you an example. When a member of our anti-trafficking group initially talked to the person who received the TRP, she said she was not controlled by anyone in her original work situation. However, as the survivor went on to describe the conditions of her work, the aspect of control was very obvious. In her country of origin she was misinformed about the nature of the work in the exotic dancing bar as well as the amount of pay she would receive. In Canada, the local agent took her return plane ticket from her. She had to sign over her cheque to the bar owner. She had to live at the bar where she worked and pay her rent from tips she received from clients. Her rent cost more than that of other people who were staying in the building. She was plied with alcohol to get her to perform tasks that she found humiliating. And she was punished for trying to get a change in work shift; she was sent to another, rougher bar where there were a lot of drugs.

With these details, it became clear to the member of the anti-trafficking group that this woman had indeed been controlled by traffickers.

To us, this indicates the need for pre-submission assistance from a support person who can help the trafficking survivor organize her story and who can recognize the elements of her story that correspond with trafficking patterns. In our view, such support would best be achieved by developing strong paths of cooperation between CIC, the RCMP, and local anti-trafficking groups.

Now I'll ask Joan to identify some areas that we think are in need of further clarity.

[Joan Atkinson, Co-director, Office for Systemic Justice, Federation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Canada]

Thank you.

I'd like to focus my remarks first on the need for clear expectations in the application process for the temporary resident permit, and secondly, very briefly speak to some areas where Canada can help in the prevention of human trafficking.

When a woman comes forward to identify herself as trafficked, it needs to be made clear that she will not be criminalized in the interview process: for example, should she identify that she told a lie when she applied for the visa into Canada, that it be understood by CIC that this person was probably already under the control and manipulation of traffickers.

It also needs to be made clear in the process that the trafficking survivor will not be required to testify against the traffickers in a court of law if they do not feel able to do so. While it's certainly desirable to prosecute the traffickers, and we would continue to encourage efforts around that, this must not be the condition of receiving a temporary resident permit, an extended temporary resident permit, or even permanent residency in the long run.

In addition, clarity is crucial in the existing definition of trafficking and its basis for the decision-making process, so that people can be properly advised to apply or not to apply for a temporary resident permit. In the case of one woman who was applying, the CIC officer suggested she would probably not receive the TRP because she had gone back to her country of origin only to renew the exotic dance visa. This seems to be moving off the existing definition to other issues, ignoring the original circumstances that brought her to Canada.

Finally, in order to ensure that the human rights of each possible survivor have been protected, it's necessary to have a vehicle to address any concerns about how the merits of a case have been assessed. Such an important process should not be dependent upon the luck of the draw in getting a CIC official who is well trained and sensitive to the problems encountered by trafficking survivors. Yet we know that CIC officials and many RCMP officers have had little or no training about how to deal with cases of human trafficking.

Also, if a judgment of the CIC official rules against granting a TRP, we have been told there is a provision for an appeal but no funding to accompany it. Therefore, we would recommend a fully funded appeal process that would help to ensure the original process does what it's intended to do, protect the human rights of trafficking survivors and to help the trafficking survivor make the transition to mainstream Canadian life, if that is what she wishes to do.

Around the area of prevention, we belive more can be done at Canadian embassies overseas during the interview process for exotic dancing visas. Currently, the interview includes a question: “Are you aware that you will have to do a strip act with nudity involved?”

We suggest some additional questions be added to this interview, such as: “Are you aware that the exotic dancers are paid very poorly in Canada, an amount that would not be sufficient to pay for rent or food?” and “Are you aware that in order to make enough money to meet expenses, you will be required to take customers to a back room--often called a VIP lounge--where you will likely be subject to intimate physical contact with the customer, and the more intimate the contact, the higher the financial return?”

Also, embassy officials should be alerted that many women applying for exotic dancing visas are already under the control of traffickers and that this should be taken into account in the interview process.

Finally, we would like to see Canada do more, in a very active way, and take a leadership role to address poverty as the root cause. Trafficking exists because criminal groups see an opportunity to use people whose poverty puts them in often desperate situations. People would not take the risks they do if they had other options to provide for themselves, their children, or their families. Therefore, it's critical to understand poverty as the root cause of trafficking in persons. We also know that poverty is a women's issue and that most victims of trafficking are women. Canada, by signing on to the Palermo Protocol, understood this and must do more to address poverty.

In the brief we submitted--we're assuming you all received it--we have identified some areas where Canada can make a difference in poverty, beyond a committee like this, by negotiating fair trade agreements, increasing foreign aid to poorer countries, and cancelling the debt of the poorest countries, where often trafficking numbers are highest.

We appreciate this effort, and we welcome any questions we may engage afterwards. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Rest assured there will be many.

We'll go to Ms. Ekberg.

[Gunilla Ekberg, Researcher on Trafficking in Human Beings, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action]

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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Ekberg, we didn't receive a copy of your brief.

[Gunilla Ekberg]

No. I was stuck in Frankfurt airport for 48 hours because of the snow here, so I didn't have access to a computer. I'm sorry. You will have my notes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You can leave them with the clerk.

[Gunilla Ekberg]

Yes, I will.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Then we can get them translated and distributed. It was invaluable.

To all of you, your information has been invaluable to us this morning.

We will now start our question period. You have seven minutes each, and we will start with Ms. Minna.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of you for your input. It is quite enlightening. Some of the information is now being repeated, which is good, because it means that certain things are being reinforced as we go through this.

Mr. McIntosh, earlier you mentioned a comprehensive national strategy. You're talking about a national action that would include international and domestic measures as well. This committee decided at the outset that because the scope is so broad, we would focus initially on issues within Canada and things that we would be able to impact within the country, and then at a later date look at the broader....

Are you saying that by doing this it wouldn't work without having the two sides...?

[Jamie McIntosh]

I think there's a vulnerability in taking that approach. It would almost be like trying to gather up after a dandelion has gone to seed and has blown across our country. You'd be picking up the fragments of the aftermath, rather than rooting out these networks of trafficking and disrupting those organized crime elements.

If you look at the facts, the sheer statistical reality is that it's somewhere between 600 to 800, and we know the statistics aren't easy to come by. If there is that level of individuals trafficked into Canada, contrasted with some 700,000 trafficked internationally around the world, you're really not even scratching the surface.

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

Thank you.

One of the things we discussed here quite openly was the issue of the criminalization of the user or the buyer, and the decriminalization of the women, obviously in this case, as one of the things we want to do. I'm glad you're reinforcing that kind of concept.

The other is the issue, which I and other colleagues raised, that poverty is at the root of it, both within Canada and abroad. I think that's clearly understood by us, and it requires a broader study, which we intend to do in the new year, to deal with women's economic security. Of course, this would be within Canada, but with respect to development and international agreements and international work, that would certainly be part of it.

I want to go to the TRPs. One of the things I have been saying for some time is that the three months, the 120 days, isn't going to do it. I was looking at a one-year permit that would allow the women to get a work permit in addition to the proper social and support services they would require. I think the agreement, which one of you said was six months...so you and I are on the same wavelength of six months to a year.

The other thing I wanted to clarify with Ms. Ekberg was the additional social aspect that you said Italy has and Sweden doesn't. What does that mean exactly, in terms of how it's implemented? Is that in the legislation? Do they have a permit?

[Gunilla Ekberg]

In Italy, it's article 18 of their immigration law. In the legislation, it says that women who are victims or identified as victims of trafficking, if they contact specially identified NGOs working with victims of trafficking, they can be given a six-month permit to recuperate, and then they can testify.

In Sweden we don't have that. You have to testify, but we have no upper limits. Women can stay as long as the case is going through the justice system, which can take up to two or three years if it goes on appeal. They can also apply for asylum under the gender-based violence clause, or they can go through on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

There are many who favour this permit in Italy, and I suggest that the committee investigate how this works. It's been going on for quite a few years, and most of the NGOs in Italy are satisfied with it.

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

Thank you. That's good to know. Maybe our researcher might be able to dig something up.

[Gunilla Ekberg]

I would be happy to give you contacts if necessary.

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

If you have some contacts, that would be helpful, and maybe we can find out exactly how this works, because it sounds quite promising.

The other thing I wanted to come to—and I think it was Ms. Ekberg who was talking about it, or maybe all of you—was with respect to addressing the broader issue. One of the things I've always found and said, as I think Mr. McIntosh said earlier, is that if the buyers can find it, then everybody should.... Sometimes it's clouded under the modelling agency, which somebody here was talking about, and the need to regulate this more, because you have underage girls who get into that business and are being abused and sidelined. There are also all of the other escort and generic things that you see advertised in the papers.

I think it was Ms. Ekberg who said that in Sweden they've actually disallowed all of that. How did they do this? What kind of legislation do they have in place?

That's fairly broad. I'm not saying no, because I don't understand why we do it at all. To me, it's sexual bias to start with, but anyway, I want to understand how they did that and what kind of legislation would be required.

[Gunilla Ekberg]

Since January 1, 1999, we have legislation that prohibits the purchase of sexual services, meaning that anyone who tries to purchase a sexual service anywhere, if it's on the Internet, in an escort service, or on the streets.... We have very little—

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

[Inaudible--Editor]...service, because we're talking about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Minna, there's very little time left.

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

Sorry, go ahead.

[Gunilla Ekberg]

Where was I?

Sexual service, if you want a definition, is not defined in the legislation. It gets defined in the courts, and it's a wide definition. Anyone who gives something for a sexual service--who pays for it or gives food or somewhere to stay or something like that--can purchase it. We also have prohibited ads in the papers, as you have, miles and miles, up and down, in all of the papers. That is not allowed, because we know that those ads are of course not from the women; it is the pimps who put those in and make money. Also, the newspapers make an enormous amount of money from them.

We know that this work has been in place for eight years now. We hear both from pimps and from the women who are victims that the pimps discuss whether Sweden is a good market. In the phone tapping evidence we have, usually the pimps are recommended to go to other countries where the prostitution industry has been normalized or legalized, like Germany, Holland, Denmark, and Spain.

I have written an article specifically on this legislation that I can also give to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

If you could give it to the clerk, Ms. Ekberg, we would appreciate it.

Ms. Mourani.