Status of Women Committee on Feb. 6th, 2007

[Gunilla Ekberg]

Having worked in the Swedish government for five years, I think the disadvantage of only having an office in the government is that when the political majority of the government changes, the policies change quite radically and very quickly. If you have an independent function outside of the government, you create some stability in the work and in the investigation of how to continue to do the work.

As we have here in Sweden, it is preferable to have both an office or people responsible within the government, and an independent national rapporteur.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have 40 seconds left.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Perrin, what do you think would help the investigations in these cases in Windsor and London? I know of the activity there. What do you feel would help the government right now the most to make sure that the situation of these trafficked people is corrected?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have 20 seconds.

[Benjamin Perrin]

The most significant thing that can be done is to demonstrate a real commitment to address this issue. It would not only align the front-line governmental workers who meet these trafficking victims and let them know that the government is committed to this and that it's a priority, but it would also put traffickers on notice. They read the newspapers, and they don't want to operate in countries that are starting to crack down. So that's the most important thing, as well as backing up that talk with action.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses. I've appreciated hearing from all of you.

I have a number of questions. I'd like to start with Ms. Wahlberg.

The office of the rapporteur was created in 1997. What difference has this office made to the ability of the Swedish government to deal with human trafficking, both nationally and internationally? How have things changed?

[Gunilla Ekberg]

As we mentioned before, first of all there's an awareness of the issues generally in society--within the public authorities, the government, and the public. There is an understanding of who is coming here, why they come here, who is organizing this, and where the victims come from. In our case, most of the victims come from Russia, the Baltic countries, and Eastern Europe.

It has also led to an emphasis on cross-border cooperation, not only with the police but also between governments. This has been based very much on the results of the findings of the national rapporteur, which have been very useful. We have had police cooperation, but we've also had a lot of prevention campaigns and initiatives, which have been bilateral and multilateral, with the nine countries that surround Sweden, where most of the victims come from. We've also had police cooperation and government cooperation, because the issue is visible.

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

Does Ms. Wahlberg interact with the rapporteurs from Nepal, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UN? If so, what form does this interaction take? Are there any advantages to having this dialogue between and among rapporteurs?

[Gunilla Ekberg]

Kajsa and I have had quite a lot of interaction with the Dutch rapporteur especially, but we have to remember that their system for dealing with trafficking, especially trafficking for sexual purposes, is very different from the Swedish one. There have been some disagreements, I should point out--not between rapporteurs but between the different systems. But they generally keep in contact and still exchange information.

The special rapporteur on trafficking has been to Sweden several times, and visited not too long ago to meet and discuss issues. The special rapporteur on violence against women, Yakin Ertürk, has also been here, because in Sweden we see trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes as a form of violence against women. So it's been part of her investigation as well. She's been visiting the offices here.

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

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Mr. Perrin, I was quite interested in what you said about anti-trafficking activities in London and Windsor. Could you describe what goes on in both those places? I'm from London, and I'm naturally quite interested.

[Benjamin Perrin]

From what's been publicly released, my understanding is there are several front-line organizations that work directly with victims. These are organizations that have typically done work with people who are here illegally in Canada and who have come to their attention. There appears to be a bit of a liaising role going on among those organizations, the CBSA, and CIC officials, i.e. the Border Services Agency and the immigration officials.

It's what's contemplated in the new guidelines for May. Time will tell. It's a very early case, and I really can't say more than that at this point. But it's promising in that it's demonstrating that the kind of cooperation that's supposed to be happening is starting to occur.

In the long term, the cooperation among these non-governmental organizations, including, I might add, a lot of the faith-based organizations, has proven to be a winning recipe, so to speak, at least in the United States. Other countries have also recognized the value of it.

The whole answer here is not government. It's not to create trafficking centres in every city. It's to take advantage of what exists there already in terms of helping people and linking that with government officials. It's really brought home to them how important it is to cooperate with these organizations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Time is up. We'll go to the second round.

Ms. Minna, for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

I wanted to ask something while we have the opportunity to have both of you here. Was the rapporteur position established before the new policy for criminalizing the user and decriminalizing the prostitution, or was it after that?

[Gunilla Ekberg]

The rapporteur was established in 1997. On the criminalizing of the buyer, the legislation came into place on January 1, 1999, about two years later.

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

On the reports and the work of the rapporteur, obviously there was some link that led to that kind of legislation and the kind of information that was being gathered. Do you see it having helped in that direction?

[Gunilla Ekberg]

Yes, absolutely, although the initiative originally about the criminalizing of the buyer came from the Swedish women's movement. But the first reports of the national rapporteur were definitely one of the bases for putting the legislation into play.

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

While I have you here, I want to ask a question.

The issue of criminalizing the buyer is something that we have been discussing, and I think we have to some degree come to a conclusion. There have been some members who have said it doesn't really work in Sweden as well as everyone says. I'm not accusing; I'm only saying it's the perception that by criminalizing the buyer, women have in essence gone underground, and we've actually created a larger underground problem than was the case before. Is that true?

[Gunilla Ekberg]

Again, I have asked Kajsa what to say.

As the county police of Stockholm always say when that issue comes up, there is no such thing as prostitution going underground, because the necessity for the prostitution industry is to reach out to the buyers. The buyers will find the pimps, and they will find the women. The police, as well the national police, always say it's their job to find the buyers, and if the buyers can find the pimps, they can too.

Adding to that, if I may, the work to assist women or young men, for that matter, get out of prostitution or trafficking prostitution is done by social workers. The social workers in all the large cities have now changed their methods on how they approach women. They are working very much on the Internet, trying to get in contact with women. They have all kinds of new measures in order to find them.

But again, when we find the buyers, we find the women, because the buyers know where they are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Ms. Neville, please.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you very much.

I'm directing my comments to our international presenters. I did not hear the original presentation; I came in late. But I have a couple of questions, based on what I've heard.

You talked about the importance of the rapporteur being able to provide stability if a government changes in a way that an office doesn't. I wonder if you could expand on that and tell us a little bit about your experience that way.

My original question was on the problems that you're facing, but let me ask you what improvements you think could be made in how you operate, whether it's funding, resources of any sort--I don't know what they are--buy-in by government. What do you need to make your job better?

[Gunilla Ekberg]

Kajsa will note what she thinks should be improvements. I will answer what happens in a change of government.

We've had, as you know, social democratic governments for a very long time here that highly prioritized the work on trafficking in human beings by giving money to the rapporteur, to the police force, giving a lot of money to NGOs to work on different issues--prevention, protection of victims--and also, money to fund organizations in the countries of origin of the victims.

We now have a new government that has totally changed the priorities and has done almost nothing on the issue so far. They've also decided that they're not going to do a national action plan in the close future, which means that of course, while the work on trafficking for sexual purposes is not changing because they have not changed the mandate of any of those who work on it, the enthusiasm and the focus on this issue is put aside.

If you have an independent national rapporteur, that office keeps the issue alive, both practically and by pushing the government to do things. For example, the next report of the rapporteur will have recommendations as to what the new government is supposed to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Could you wrap up, please, because time is up.

[Gunilla Ekberg]

We're just discussing improvement.

What Kajsa says would be really useful for her office--and as you remember, they have three police officers and a secretariat--is to have researchers attached to her office, researchers who have good experience and knowledge of this who can assist in investigating things. Now she has to reach out to researchers outside of her office.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Stanton.