Thank you to the members of the committee for having us here today. My name is Jovana Blagovcanin, and I am the anti-human trafficking manager at FCJ Refugee Centre. I'm joined here today by my colleague, Chiara Rossi, who is the anti-human trafficking women's coordinator.
FCJ Refugee Centre is a grassroots community organization based in Toronto, Ontario. For over 30 years, FCJ Refugee Centre has supported hundreds of individuals and families, many in precarious situations, in accessing services and regularizing immigration status. With an open-door and holistic approach, we offer a unique integrated model of providing supports and services, such as housing, shelter and integration to migrants. These include migrants who may be at risk or are victims of human trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation.
Through our work supporting survivors of labour trafficking, we have recognized that women are highly represented in cases of labour trafficking. This is not a male-dominated issue. Within our cases in the past year, 40% of these have been of migrant women. Migrant women are highly vulnerable to exploitation due to their gender, precarious immigration status, language barriers and limited knowledge of their rights or available resources, which in turn results in limited access to their rights.
Women are exploited in all sectors. We see women trafficked in sex work, and in domestic servitude, factories, restaurants, hotels, farms and cleaning services. These women have limited options to exit their situation and are often threatened with violence or deportation. In fact, traffickers often use their victims' precarious immigration status against them as a form of control and coercion. In addition to these barriers, we often see how women have difficulties securing safety due to an inadequate integration of gender perspectives and analysis in relevant law enforcement services.
For these women with precarious immigration status, there are limited remedies to secure stability. First of all, even though IRCC's policy does not require victims to collaborate with law enforcement agencies, or to testify against their traffickers in order to receive a temporary resident permit, TRP, as a victim of human trafficking, in our daily practice we have observed that many such TRP applications are denied when a case against the trafficker is not pending, whether this is because no investigation was initiated by law enforcement or has been concluded in court. This is particularly true for both initial and subsequent TRPs for victims of labour trafficking, which are refused at a higher rate than sex trafficking victims. As a result, if there is no criminal investigation ongoing or the case has been concluded, she is left with no status, no justice and very few options to safely remain in Canada.
Furthermore, while some victims may be granted a temporary resident permit, there are almost no permanent immigration remedies. Current options are exceptional in nature, making it difficult for victims to be successful in obtaining permanent residency. In turn, this creates uncertainty in the lives of victims and their families, whose future depends on the unpredictable outcomes of their immigration and criminal proceedings.
Finally, if granted a TRP, the victim will have barriers to accessing essential services, such as housing subsidies available to domestic victims of trafficking or other vulnerable women, and provincial financial assistance—here in Ontario it would be Ontario Works—and, most importantly, she will have no right to family reunification. As a result, mothers are unable to reunite with their children in Canada and have difficulties visiting them in their countries of origin without losing their status.
We therefore recommend that a gender perspective be better integrated in law enforcement and other services; that temporary status be granted to victims regardless of the existence of an investigation or criminal proceedings against their traffickers, as established in the relevant IRCC policies; and that clear and consistent options for permanent residency be developed to respond to the needs of survivors. Finally, we recommend that adequate trauma-informed and victim-centered services be offered to all victims regardless of their immigration status.
We are grateful and honoured to be here to be able to bring this perspective forward, including labour trafficking as an issue that does impact women, especially migrant women. We are grateful to be able to bring forward the perspective of all migrant women today.
Thank you for having us.