Justice committee  Thank you. Good morning. My name is Timea Nagy. I am a founder of the Walk With Me organization and a survivor of human trafficking. Mr. Hooper is the chairperson of the board of directors of Walk With Me. Walk With Me Canada Victim Services, or Walk With Me, is a front-line

Justice committee  Thank you for that question, but unfortunately, you're not going to like the answer. I'm going to start by answering the second question you had regarding immigration laws. There is one thing that Canada has graciously done, and that is to introduce a temporary work permit for

Justice committee  That was fine.

Justice committee  Thank you very much for the question. I really appreciate that. The first human trafficking law that was put in the Criminal Code—section 279.03, I believe—would have changed my life right away, because at the time that my case happened, it was only exploitation, and there was n

Justice committee  There's one area that has been overlooked, which I haven't mentioned yet. There hasn't been any prosecution about this type of trafficking. That's simply because there is nothing for the prosecutor to even do any cases on. There's one thing that's very well-known and that has b

Justice committee  It's just that you actually don't need a lawyer to get a work permit. It's included in your temporary work permit.

Justice committee  I'm going to answer half of it, and then I'm going to pass it on to Mr. Hooper. Yes, it is confusing, because in some departments we do receive help and in some departments there is absolutely nothing. We would get a grant from the government for one year. That will pay for the

Justice committee  One safe house for three nights only.

Justice committee  For all of Canada—but they won't pay a salary for people to staff the safe house. So yes and no. That's why it's just as confusing to me as it is to you. I'm going to pass it on to Mr. Hooper.

Justice committee  I'm a survivor of sex trafficking, and a founder and front-line worker for Walk With Me, an organization that has been working 24-7 on the ground with victims of sex slavery for the last four years here in Canada. Of these victims, 90% were Canadian girls between the ages of 15 a

Justice committee  I was trafficked under the age of 20, but the majority of the victims we are working with now are 16, and I'm not making that up.

Justice committee  We agree with that, but we would go further and say that instead of criminalizing we would like to apprehend the child under the age of 18 in need of protection.

Justice committee  The correct way for me to answer that is that the majority of the women that we have seen—which is about 300 in the last four years—were forced into prostitution. We do not deny the fact that there are women in this industry who entered into this industry of their own will, jus

Justice committee  It's absolutely not.

Justice committee  I want to start by saying that as I sit here listening, I zone out. I'm leaving my body and listening to the argument they are making. I believe this isn't really a debate about our next legislation. This is a debate about where Canada as a society will go next. This is a debate