Justice committee  That would be difficult for me to put a number on. I would say the vast majority of people I work with are adults who have been in the trade for a long time and who are working without any coercion whatsoever. That said, it's not always so clear-cut. I certainly also worked with

Justice committee  Certainly. I have to say that I do work with many individuals who are autonomous, they're adults, they have been working in the industry for a long time, and I would be very hard put to consider those people as victims. They are in control of their own life and their own economic

Justice committee  Yes, that's pretty close. If coercion is present under Canadian law, certainly that could make...out to the crime of human trafficking, but it's not required. That's how it differs from the UN's own definition, which does require coercion, threats, or abuse of power in order to m

Justice committee  The issue that I see with that is this. As this committee is likely aware, traffickers often recruit their own victims to recruit further victims. You may have a case where somebody is involved in simply transporting a person from one location to the other, but isn't actually coe

Justice committee  In my own clients?

Justice committee  I would encourage law enforcement to work collaboratively with sex worker advocacy organizations. There are some examples around the country where that's occurring. The primary problem, as I understand it, is that the police enforcement tactics themselves are quite aggressive. Th

Justice committee  I can say that I believe it was about two and a half to three years ago, and if I recall correctly, it took place in Saskatchewan. I myself was contacted by Butterfly, when I was working as a lawyer in Toronto, to try to intervene. I'm afraid I don't have more details for you rig

Justice committee  In conclusion, Pivot is recommending the repeal of laws that criminalize adults' consensual sex work. I will refer you to the brief that we submitted to this committee, which also includes in it an earlier report done by Pivot, called “The Case for Repeal”. Decriminalizing consen

Justice committee  Thank you. My name is Frances Mahon, and thank you very much to the committee for inviting me to discuss how human trafficking enforcement is working in Canada. We applaud the government for giving this urgent issue the attention it deserves. I'm speaking to you today from Vanc