Status of Women committee  I'll try to be brief. The problem is that this is the status of women committee. If we focus on punishing men or focus on the big-picture stuff, which should change—the inequality between men and women, the economic inequality, the sexual inequality, the sexual abuse of women by men, that should change, but it's going to take, as we know, a very long time.

Status of Women committee  Yes, maybe, but in this case, going in and raiding men has meant it has gone even further underground. The Swedish outreach groups and the police are therefore having a much harder time finding them, even though we know they're there. Remember, cellphones have made the sex trade completely invisible.

Status of Women committee  Clearly, this is all about economics in the end. For many women, this is the job that's available to them because of the gender division of labour. That's what's out there. That's certainly what women in Thailand told me. That's what women in the Maritimes, where I have just surveyed 64 of them working in sex work, told me.

Status of Women committee  I think a big part of it is trading agreements. In my ideal world, if you really want to address the economic inequalities, then we have to address trade relationships in particular. The fact that we pay a tiny percentage of the cost of a cup of coffee tells you everything. Yet here we pay $1.50 or $2 for every cup.

Status of Women committee  And in part, that's why I would urge the government...again, the Canadian government has not signed on to the migrant workers convention, which has a very interesting method of working that says, look, all governments are responsible even for undocumented migrants and their basic human rights--the basic ones.

Status of Women committee  I'll address two questions with respect to minors. The numbers are very soft. The methodologies are problematic because of the differences in definitions. If you define all prostitutes as traffic, then the numbers are huge. If you're referring only to those who are forced or tricked, then the numbers get smaller.

Status of Women committee  I'll just pick up where I left off. I think my answer addresses the same question. I know this is difficult to understand, because people have a moral reaction to prostitution. But remember, we're talking about trafficking with respect to all sorts of workers—agricultural, domestic work, and so on.

Status of Women committee  But you must remember Canada's—

Status of Women committee  I will point out that Canada is party to the transnational organized crime protocol on trafficking, which defines trafficking not just as sexual servitude. It also includes work of other sorts, and organ transplants as well. So trafficking officially, internationally, by the Canadian government's own definition, is much wider than sexual servitude.

Status of Women committee  No. That's the problem with the definition of “trafficking”. None of us can agree about what is happening. It's very easy if we just say that people are kidnapped, forced into work, sent abroad, and enslaved. That's a very small instance, unless you believe all prostitution is forced, that people are forced into prostitution.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Ms. Sgro, and thank you to the committee for inviting me here today. I'll start with a few caveats, and then I'll give my major points. To begin, there are a few things we need to be cautious about in the discussion of trafficking. First, it's important to remember that the concept of trafficking is still difficult and very much debated.