Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to speak in support of the motion tabled by my colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul. I would like to thank her for agreeing to let me co-sponsor this motion. I believe that when we are talking about human trafficking, political party divisions disappear. All that counts is a united approach to solving the problem.
The member's motion asks that Canada condemn the international trafficking of women and children for the purposes of sexual exploitation, and calls for a comprehensive strategy to combat it, which is fundamental. In this age of globalization and economic liberalization, human trafficking has become a lucrative business for traffickers and procurers, as well as States. We must have the courage to speak that truth.
According to the UNODC, 92% of victims of human trafficking are sold into prostitution. Of those, 48% are children. The European Union's Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities reports that 90% of trafficking victims are sold into prostitution.
According to UNICEF, 1.2 million children around the world are victims of human trafficking every year.
According to the 2005 report by the U.S. State Department on human trafficking, 600,000 to 800,000 persons are trafficked each year throughout the world. Of this number, 80% are women and girls and 50% are minors.
According to a 2005 report by the World Trade Organization, 98% of the victims of sexual exploitation are women and girls.
Finally, the United Nations Population Fund estimated in 2006 that roughly 50% of the victims of human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation are minors.
Can we say, then, that this is happening only to other people and is not happening in Canada? We cannot.
Clearly, we cannot talk about international trafficking without talking about trafficking within Canada. In light of this, since September, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women has looked at the issue of human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation in Canada. We will release our report shortly. In addition, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I personally introduced a motion that was passed unanimously by the committee, recognizing the problem of human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation within Canada.
We know that Canada is a country of origin and a transit point on the way to other countries, such as the United States, but it is also a consumer country. Some witnesses who testified before our committee stated that Canadians and Americans were major consumers of sexual tourism. Unfortunately, we have a lot of work to do to protect women and children.
In addition, we must be very careful to distinguish between trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation and trafficking for the purposes of forced labour or organ harvesting. We therefore cannot talk about the form of trafficking we are talking about today without mentioning prostitution. There is a very clear link between prostitution and human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. According to various sources, 90% to 92% of the victims of trafficking are traded for the purposes of prostitution.
The Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee of the European Parliament, in its notice of September 18, 2006—which is quite recent—quotes the 2004 report by London Metropolitan University on prostitution. This report demonstrated that legalized prostitution leads to child sex abuse, violence against women and a marked rise in human trafficking around the world and, of course, in countries that blithely approve this sort of “work”. There is also a significant increase in the number of women and children from other countries in countries where legalized prostitution is widespread.
The commission also concluded that legalization of prostitution facilitates the buying of sex, including from victims of trafficking, and recommends that member states recognize that diminishing the demand for trafficking is of vital importance.
I think the major issue underlying trafficking is prostitution. That is the basic issue. We must therefore ask ourselves the following question. Is prostitution a job or is it exploitation?
Personally, I believe there is no such thing as voluntary prostitution, in comparison to forced prostitution, because prostitution is a form of violence in itself, direct and systematic violence that is perpetuated by exploiters. Besides, the few women who say they do it to make ends meet and who do not have pimps all want one thing. They want to get out of it and do something else with their lives.
Trivializing prostitution is a violation of fundamental human rights. This trivialization is society's curse. What we are doing is trivializing prostitution. We have all heard that it is the oldest profession. No, it is not the oldest profession. It is the oldest form of exploitation. That is what prostitution is.
The 2001 Criminal Intelligence Service Canada report stated that the average age of entry into prostitution in Canada is 14 years. Does anyone choose prostitution at the age of 14 or 12 or 8? I doubt it.
Children are simply brainwashed and groomed to become prostitutes to fuel this human meat market. Their spirit is broken so that they feel worthless. They are broken to become sexual slaves, even in adulthood. They have never known anything else in their lives other than being exploited, being an object or a piece of merchandise. What do we expect from them? What do we think they will do at age 18 or 19? Do we think they will find work? We will talk about that later.
No one chooses to be a prostitute when they are an addict, a victim of family violence, incest or psychological abuse, when they lack self-esteem because they have been beaten their entire life. No one chooses to be a sexual object. No one chooses to be called all sorts of names. We know that the word prostitute is not always used. A number of other terms are used, which I will refrain from uttering in this House, as a matter of decorum. No one chooses to be forced to service several clients—some talk of 10, 20 or 30 clients—in one day. That would surprised me greatly.
Some people say prostitutes like it, and it is a job that pays well. Let us stop trivializing this violence against human beings. Most of these people are women. Let us ask questions.
Prostitution is conducive only to unequal relations between people. I believe it is highly important that Canada never take the path to legalizing pimping and brothels. I also believe that the Netherlands is a very good example of how this has failed.
Because I have a time limit, I suggest that my colleagues do some research into this. They will see, for example, that in 1981, in the Netherlands, there were 2,500 prostitutes. In 2004, there were 30,000. Some 80% of these prostitutes are foreign nationals and 70% of them do not even have identification documents.
As far as minors are concerned, in 1996, there were 4,000 prostitutes who were minors in the Netherlands. In 2001, there were 15,000, of whom 5,000 were foreign nationals.
We have to wonder about legalizing prostitution, but we still have to deal with this major issue. In Canada, we need to start following Sweden's lead and think about implementing a system that penalizes the purchase of sexual services, because it is a matter of supply and demand. The greater the supply, the greater the demand, and the greater the demand, the greater the supply. The more women there are on the market, the greater the demand for children.
It is high time that, as a society, as a country, we had a fundamental debate about the purchase of sexual services here in Canada. Do we agree that prostitutes should be penalized? No, we need to help them, provide them with shelters, give them psychological support and health care and so on, but women have been penalized enough.
We need to start looking at the real problem: the purchase of sexual services.