Thank you.
Good morning, Madam Chair and honourable committee members. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to contribute today and speak about the issue of human trafficking in Canada.
My name is Kate Price, and I am the executive director of ACT Alberta, which stands for the Action Coalition on Human Trafficking.
In the spirit of reconciliation, I respectfully acknowledge the traditional lands of diverse indigenous peoples on which we meet today.
ACT Alberta is a non-governmental, non-profit charity that operates province-wide. We run a community-based victim services unit that uses a harm reduction model to provide specialized case management to victims and survivors of both labour and sex trafficking. We offer free anti-trafficking education to the public, as well as tailored training programs for industries, such as law enforcement, health care and transportation. We use a coalition model to strengthen referral networks, cross-agency partnerships and research initiatives, in order to help build our community's capacity to combat human trafficking.
Today, I would like to raise three points for your consideration to highlight critical nuances of supporting survivors.
My first point is that sensationalizing human trafficking is harming victims. Sensationalizing can form an unconscious bias or a harmful stereotype, or perpetuate the idea of a “perfect victim”. According to a report by the Canadian Women’s Foundation, 62% of trafficking victims in Canada were trafficked by an intimate partner or someone they knew well. If we are looking for shackles, bars on windows or human smuggling, we may miss the human rights violations occurring right in front of us. Sensationalizing this crime may make the victim or survivor feel their experience is not traumatic enough to come forward. They may feel minimized and downplay their experience because it doesn't mirror what they see in the media.
ACT Alberta has had the privilege of serving hundreds of survivors. While there may be some statistical overlap, their stories are their own. Human trafficking can and does happen to anyone. Coercion and manipulation are more common than restraints. Awareness-raising initiatives must be thoughtfully developed to better represent the diversity of survivors and their experiences.
My second point is that we must not dictate the opinions of survivors. Whether an organization believes in ending the demand for sex work, decriminalizing sex work or remaining neutral in this debate, the priority should always be empowering the survivor. Stats Canada reports that almost half of Canadians who are in recovery from an active addiction will face social stigma in society, which creates significant barriers to accessing treatment and support services. Whether a survivor wants to pursue sobriety, exit or remain in the sex industry, or report their abuser, it is their decision alone and one they shouldn't make with judgment.
It's important to remember that the trauma a survivor has experienced may have started long before they were trafficked. In a study done by the Polaris Project, of the 457 survivors surveyed, 96% of participants had experienced childhood abuse, whether psychological, sexual or physical. Trauma-informed care helps us acknowledge someone's response to trauma and change the question from “What's wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” We need to understand that survivors are equal partners in planning, developing and monitoring care. Person-centred care means putting survivors at the centre of decisions and regarding them as experts—