Foreign Affairs committee  What I would say is that, even at the best of times, child sexual exploitation is difficult to mobilize public attention to because, obviously, the children can't speak for themselves, and the crime itself is not a visible crime. Where attention is diverted elsewhere because of C

Foreign Affairs committee  ECPAT is concerned with sexual exploitation, and the impact of COVID-19 on recruitment of children for sex has been adverse because there's been more desperation among the target population; it's become more vulnerable. It's also been adverse because the protective mechanisms hav

Foreign Affairs committee  What I would say generally about these issues relating to child sexual exploitation is that when you're dealing with governments, on the whole—well, universally—they're supportive. With some human rights issues you get push-back from governments, but generally not on this type of

Foreign Affairs committee  Of course there's a connection between what happens abroad and what happens in Canada, and one can see that with our refugee population. The refugee population is not just abroad. A lot of it comes to Canada. We have an interest in going to the root causes of problems that genera

Foreign Affairs committee  You were talking specifically about the most effective way to get aid or help for these people. The problem we're seeing right now is that a lot of services that were previously available are becoming underfunded because of COVID. Because of COVID, one could compensate for this l

Foreign Affairs committee  If I may just add something about sexual exploitation in particular, which you also asked about, there's a double problem here. One is there's increased vulnerability with the increased poverty, which leads to increased willingness to sell children for money. Also, many parents a

Foreign Affairs committee  ECPAT is a network of affiliated organizations, and there are country representatives of ECPAT in 102 countries, including the European countries, absolutely. The headquarters have put out a general statement about the problems of COVID and sexual exploitation. What you're talki

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you for inviting me and for inviting us to participate in this study. Beyond Borders ECPAT Canada is the Canadian affiliate of ECPAT, headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. ECPAT is the worldwide network of organizations working to end the sexual exploitation of children. EC