Status of Women committee  No, not at all. I'm saying they shouldn't be prosecuted. They shouldn't be charged. They shouldn't need a new kind of defence. You shouldn't charge them. They're victims.

Status of Women committee  That's right. Don't prosecute.

Status of Women committee  Well, there....

Status of Women committee  Yes. This is a difficult issue, the issue of women's agency and their right to make choices, and you're quite correct that there are movements, but I think the defining feature here is the coercion and the violence that accompany trafficking. So since we're talking about trafficking, not involvement in the sex trade per se, trafficking in and of itself by definition involves violence and coercion.

Status of Women committee  No. What I said is that we need to carefully review our policies and protocols. We need to ensure that people are reported and that they have a mechanism to report. We need to ensure that we have adequate training. I'm making no allegations about what's going on currently. I'm just saying we have an obligation to ensure that if it is going on, it's detected and it's prosecuted, and that there's adequate education going on.

Status of Women committee  Yes. I think it raises, certainly in my mind, a number of flags. Unfortunately, the department is in possession of the answers to the questions and all I can do is pose the questions. We need to ask clearly how widely known the availability of the visa is. We need to know whether women are specifically counselled when they are rounded up by the police.

Status of Women committee  There are a number of jurisdictions that have moved, specifically in light of the signing of the Palermo Protocol, to protect victims. I know the United States has legislation; Italy has legislation; and the Council of Europe also has, and in fact I think I have a copy of their legislation here.

Status of Women committee  NAWL has always supported pay equity. That's one of the positions that NAWL has always taken. Pay equity is a very important part of ensuring women's equality. When we are talking about trafficking, we're talking about women who are working illegally in the country in many cases, or on visas in an area that would probably not be protected by pay equity, in any event.

Status of Women committee  It's possible. I'd have to think about the link. In a broader sense, obviously pay equity is a very important piece for women's equality, and trafficking is based on women's equality. I suppose there's a connection, but I hadn't thought precisely about what it was until you asked the question.

Status of Women committee  I'll just start with the last question about the aboriginal women. One of the issues that arose from our national consultations was the prevalence of aboriginal women being trafficked within Canada, and we need to actually look at that. It's not just foreign women coming in. I'm not sure there's any definitive research done in that area, which again I think is problematic.

Status of Women committee  I'm not denying that efforts are being made; I'm just saying they do not go far enough. Very important and appropriate players in all of this are the NGOs. They need to receive support because they are the groups the women will trust.

Status of Women committee  My colleague actually works for NAWL. I'm a volunteer with NAWL and I work on immigration issues for NAWL as part of the immigration working group. I know that NAWL is always scrambling for resources. Even though we draw upon tremendous volunteer resources like me and many other women, both lawyers and non-lawyers, we're always struggling to keep going.

Status of Women committee  I'm the immediate past chair of the court challenges program. I just finished my mandate. If you're interested in the court challenges program, I think it's a tremendous blow to the ability of women to participate in a judicial system where many of these issues would be resolved.

Status of Women committee  I really can't answer that. It's threefold. There need to be adequate resources for protection, prosecution, and prevention. The Palermo declaration recognizes the three approaches, although it places significantly less emphasis in the two articles on prevention and protection than it does on prosecution.

Status of Women committee  That's certainly not the message we've received from the settlement agencies in all of our national consultations. One of the difficulties we have is that some of these women may be picked up first by immigration officials, not law enforcement officials. I agree with you that where it's in the interests of the prosecution, they will be sheltered and protected.