Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation to the hon. member for her initiative on this compelling issue.
I am pleased to support the motion and the common cause that underpins it. The motion reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the trafficking of women and children across international borders for the purposes of sexual exploitation should be condemned, and that the House call on the government to immediately adopt a comprehensive strategy to combat the trafficking of persons worldwide.
I am pleased to join with her and with all Canadians in, as she put it, one voice in this regard.
I propose to organize my remarks around two themes: first, an appreciation of the nature, scope and pernicious effects of the evil that we are seeking to combat; and second, to reaffirm a proposal for a comprehensive strategy to combat trafficking, anchored in the one that I developed as justice minister.
However, this is not a matter of partisanship but of common cause and, therefore, such improvements and refinements that can be made in this strategy that I proposed but which remain not fully implemented, would be welcomed by the government.
I will begin with an understanding and awareness of the nature, scope and pernicious consequences of the evil we are seeking to combat, this scourge of human trafficking, this pernicious, persistent and pervasive assault on human rights, this commodification in human beings where human beings are regarded as cattle to be bonded and bartered.
It is only appropriate that this motion be put forward on the eve of International Human Rights Day and only appropriate that we are dealing with it in the aftermath of the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. What we are dealing with is the enslavement of human beings, what I first called in the House, when I presented legislation in that regard, as a global slave trade; treating human beings as goods to be bought, sold and forced to work usually in the sex trade but also as agricultural labour or in sweat shops for little or no money.
Through the dedicated efforts of people like Dean Harold Koh of Yale law school, formerly the assistant secretary of state for Human Rights, Democracy and Labor in the U.S. state department, and Radhika Coomataswamy, the former United States special rapporteur with regard to violence against women, we now have a comprehensive understanding of the scope of this global sex trade. We know that this grotesque trade in human life generates upwards to $12 billion a year. We know that trafficking is so profitable that it is the world's fastest growing international crime. We know that the majority of victims being trafficked are girls and women under the age of 25 and that many trafficking victims are young people, including children. We know that the victims of trafficking are desperate to secure the necessities of life and, as a result of that, their lives are mired in exploitation and rooted in the greed of those who prey upon them.
We know that UNICEF estimated that 1.2 million children are trafficked globally each year and that the International Labour Organization estimates that 2.5 million children are currently in situations of forced labour as a result of being trafficked. We know that no matter for what purpose they are trafficked, all trafficked persons suffer deprivation of liberty and physical, sexual and emotional abuse, including threats of violence and actual harm to themselves or to their family members.
If we are to develop a comprehensive strategy to combat the trafficking, we need to stop thinking in terms of abstract silos, of thinking of human trafficking as an abstract or faceless problem, of thinking of it as a criminal law problem, a law enforcement problem, an economic problem, an immigration problem or a public health problem. It is each and all of these and more.
Trans-border trafficking is a multi-billion dollar criminal industry that challenges law enforcement officials, flouts all immigration laws, threatens to spread global disease and constitutes an assault on each of our fundamental rights. More important, behind each and all of these problems is a human face, a human being who is being trafficked, and that trafficking constitutes an assault on our common humanity.
Accordingly, it must be seen, first and foremost, as a generic human rights assault with a human face as its victim and as being the very antithesis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As Professor Harold Koh put it, “By their acts, traffickers deny that all persons are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They deny their victims freedom of movement, freedom of association and, the most basic freedom, to have a childhood”.
What then can we do? I will briefly outline a comprehensive strategy, speaking telegraphically, of which the first component must be a strategy of prevention: to prevent the trafficking to begin with; to raise awareness of this new global slave trade and of the urgency to take immediate action against trafficking; to raise awareness of the urgent need to raise our voices in domestic and international fora, making it clear that this is a priority for all of us; and to raise awareness that trafficking can be prevented if we mobilize a constituency of conscience, both domestically and internationally.
This motion today can serve as a call to action and ensure that Canadians across the country realize that this modern slavery is not something out there that does not touch us here at home. It is something that exists here in Canada but it not only touches us but it is part of an international connecting link, an assault for which we will need a comprehensive strategy of cross-commitment.
This leads me to the second element in that strategy, which is the protection strategy, respecting the victims of trafficking. This involves a number of elements, including the residency protection, by protecting against ill-considered detention and deportation such that the victims of trafficking are re-victimized if not also re-traumatized, where they sometimes are detained as illegal immigrants facing criminal charges rather than trafficking victims deserving of protection.
There is also the need for support services. We find that a whole series of support services, be it shelter, health or counselling and the like, are matters sometimes that are within provincial jurisdiction and that coordinated effort that is needed for that purpose may be lacking in that regard and that the services end up being delivered by NGOs or private agencies that may not have the resources for that purpose and which need to have the government supported protective framework for these services.
These victims also need protective support in a form of witness protection and otherwise with respect to those who may wish to testify against those who have in fact assaulted them.
This brings me to the third component, the comprehensive legislative component. We have an Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Last year we enacted the first ever criminal law legislation in this regard. We also have an international law framework that we have domesticated. What we need to do is to invoke, apply and enforce this comprehensive legislative framework in that regard.
Fourth, we also need a focal point for our work. This is where, as a result of international recommendations, we established, during my period as minister, as a focal point for that comprehensive strategy, a federal interdepartmental working group co-chaired by justice and foreign affairs which has an express mandate, in fact, to develop and implement this comprehensive strategy.
Fifth, we need to intensify the work of the RCMP, both domestically and internationally, including its international human trafficking investigative unit.
Sixth, we need to engage our federal, provincial and territorial counterparts. This should be a standing item of federal, provincial and territorial conferences of ministers of justice because of that coordinative aspect that I mentioned earlier.
Seventh, we need to work with our international counterparts to enhance existing legislative tools to combat human trafficking across national borders.
I will conclude by saying that addressing and redressing this most profound of human rights assaults, assaults on human dignity, requires this comprehensive approach, an approach that will allow us to prevent the problems to begin with, to protect the victims of trafficking, to pursue the traffickers themselves, to be involved in partnerships, which I call the four Ps in that regard, and to address the issue from an international and domestic perspective. We have common cause but by working together we can create a critical mass of advocacy on behalf of this most compelling of common causes.