Good afternoon. Thank you for having me here today.
My name is Raman Hansra, and I am the project director of family services at Indus Community Services.
With the generous funding support from Women and Gender Equality Canada, our anti-human-trafficking project is testing best practices to support survivors of human trafficking and at-risk populations. As we started this project, we realized that minimal evidence-based research exists on the needs of victims of human trafficking. Because incidents often go unreported, often we don't know the true scope of human trafficking. What we do know is that human trafficking is flourishing around us, demanding our attention and action.
Working with other community partners and settlement-service providers, we also recognize that, while there are effective services available, there are still aspects of these services that need to be improved. For example, there need to be cultural considerations regarding referrals to counselling, as victims come from many different cultures and we cannot assume that individuals from all cultures will respond to the same approach.
Involving the family in helping victims post-trafficking can be a great support system for many survivors. However, many family members may not have a full understanding of human trafficking, and this can cause the family to place a stigma on the victim. It is critical for us, as service providers, to have a solid understanding of their unique needs and to train and support our settlement counsellors and other service providers to better equip them to support survivors of human trafficking and at-risk individuals.
As most newcomers and international students often access these settlement services, there is a huge opportunity for us, as service providers, to identify the signs of trafficking in order to connect them with appropriate services.
We have recently launched our tool kit for service providers to better support the survivors and at-risk populations. We are hopeful that this will help them identify who is at risk, who the traffickers are, and effective responses, while also providing a detailed list of local resources.
Going forward, Indus Community Services and our partners hope to be able to build on current momentum to bring an end to human trafficking in all its forms.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee.