Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to congratulate the member for Kildonan—St. Paul for her motion, her efforts and her vision.
Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations as the recruitment of persons by means of deception or use of force for the purpose of sexual or other exploitation.
It is estimated that 80% of victims are women and children and that there are between 700,000 and two million victims every year throughout the world.
An organization known as Anti-Slavery International estimates that at least 27 million individuals are slaves at the present time. An exhaustive UNICEF field study estimates that 1.2 million children are victims of trafficking every year. This is a serious problem. The majority of the victims of this type of economic exploitation, about 46%, are found in the prostitution sector and in domestic servitude, farming, manufacturing and hospitality, that is restaurants or tourism.
According to Irene Sushko, of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress , human trafficking “constitutes horrific acts of slavery, the shameful assault on the dignity of children, the exploitation of the vulnerable for profit”.
It is also obvious that human trafficking has grown at an alarming rate in the past ten years. In 2004, Irwin Cotler, the former Minister of Justice, estimated—