I'm going to speak a little about how I would perceive a national rapporteur in Canada. I also have to say that I am Canadian and have worked on these issues in Canada for many years.
I'm delighted to be back here to have the opportunity to address you again. In my latest appearance to the committee I proposed that a national rapporteur be appointed and adequately funded in Canada, using other countries' experiences to develop an appropriate mandate. I have worked with the Swedish national rapporteur for five years, and I also work continuously with the national rapporteur in Nepal, whose position I evaluated two years ago.
Why is it important to establish an independent office of a national rapporteur in Canada? The work to prevent income by trafficking in Canada and the protection of assistance to victims is carried out by many actors at both the federal and provincial levels. But there is very little national coordination of the work that is done, and there is not very much coordination and analysis of those initiatives that are put into place.
I'm also surprised that the knowledge and research about the situation of trafficking human beings in Canada, and the measures, are surprisingly limited compared to other countries in the world. I suggest that Canada needs an independent mechanism that is responsible for gathering, analyzing, and presenting comparative data about the scale and states of trafficking in human beings within and to Canada. It's important to remember that trafficking takes place both cross-border and within the country.
I also think that the national rapporteur should evaluate local and national policy, and legal measures and initiatives. Such a measure would be consistent with Canada's national, legal, and charter obligations and the legislative approach so far.
We should remember that in 2003 the CEDAW committee--the UN committee that looks at the state of the elimination of discrimination of women in the country--expressed its severe concerns as to how Canada lacked an organized approach to measures on trafficking in human beings, especially when it came to protection and support of victims of trafficking.
If Canada implemented a national rapporteur, and especially if it were done through a cross-party initiative--meaning that all parties agreed to this, which was the fact in Sweden--we would show a commitment to working against trafficking.
What should the tasks be? First of all, I think it's important that the national rapporteur operates as an independent and autonomous entity, with a general mandate to investigate, monitor, and analyze the character, state, and scale of trafficking to and within Canada. It should also study the effectiveness of already-implemented policy, legal and practical measures, or as the case may be, the lack of measures.
All actions and initiatives of such a national rapporteur should, as in Sweden and Nepal, have a firm gender equality perspective and be based on internationally recognized principles of non-discrimination. It should also take account, of course, of the human rights and the fundamental freedoms of the victims.
The national rapporteur should be given a mandate to present annual reports to governments on the extent and development of the situation. It should focus initially on trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes, considering that today this kind of trafficking has the largest number of victims in Canada. It should later extend its investigations to all other forms of trafficking.
In the report, the national rapporteur should pay particular attention to the adequacy of legal and other measures for the protection and assistance of victims, as well as look at investigations and prosecutions of the perpetrators to see if they're adequate and there is collaboration with the countries of origin. It should also look at and publicize information on emerging issues—new forms of trafficking, new methods for the traffickers in and to Canada.
It is important that the national rapporteur issues recommendations on how to develop and ameliorate the work to prevent income by trafficking.
To be able to carry out this work, funding is of course essential. You need a staff, you need research staff, and you need adequate funding so that the rapporteur can travel and bring in the information that's needed.