Human trafficking a domestic and international issue, RCMP report says

An RCMP report on human trafficking found that many of its victims came from within Canada. Photograph by: RCMP video, Handout

SOURCE: THE GAZETTE

By Janice Tibbetts, Postmedia News
September 13, 2010

OTTAWA — The RCMP, in its first expansive assessment of trafficking in humans, revealed Monday that there are currently 36 cases before the criminal courts in Canada and that most victims are Canadian citizens or permanent residents who are not necessarily recruited from overseas.

The report, which examined human trafficking in Canada from 2005 to 2009, concluded that many human trafficking suspects, who mainly recruit their victims for sexual exploitation, are also linked to major criminal networks involved in conspiracy to commit murder, credit card fraud, mortgage fraud and immigration fraud in Canada and abroad.

The three ethnic communities that are highlighted in the report are Eastern Europeans, Asians, and Africans and the methods of trafficking humans vary depending on their country of origin, says a summary of the report.

Victims include live-in foreign domestic workers who were smuggled into Canada by their employers, Eastern European women recruited by organized crime to work in escort services, African women who were trafficked for sexual exploitation outside of Canada, and workers in bawdy houses run by Asian prostitution rings.

"Control tactics employed by traffickers to retain victims in exploitative situations include social isolation, forcible confinement, withholding identification documents, imposing strict rules, limitation of movement, as well as threats and violence," said a summary of the report.

The RCMP describe the findings as a "preliminary baseline of human trafficking activities" that affects Canada both domestically and internationally.

Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings, mainly for sexual exploitation or forced labour and it is widely described as a form of modern-day slavery.

The report lists 17 key findings, which include

Recent convictions of human trafficking have mostly involved victims who are citizens and/or permanent residents of Canada trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation has been mostly associated with organized prostitution occurring discreetly behind fronts, like escort agencies and residential brothels.

Human trafficking suspects usually share similar ethnicity with their associates and have ethnic ties to source countries of their migrant workers.

Suspected transnational trafficking networks are believed to have operators based in source countries to facilitate the recruitment and transport segments of the trafficking process. Some organizers likely provide high quality false travel documents for migrants to travel deceptively to Canada.

Organized crime networks with Eastern European links have been involved in the organized entry of women from former Soviet States into Canada for employment in escort services in the Greater Toronto Area and possibly in massage and escort services in the Montreal area.

Human trafficking has been identified in bawdy houses operated by Asian prostitution rings. The establishments are discreet and staffed solely by Asian migrants or persons of Asian descent.

Asian sex workers have been observed to travel inter-provincially between Canadian cities and possibly to the U.S, to prostitute in bawdy houses.

Major Canadian cities with an established network of Asian organized crime are destinations for migrant sex workers from Asia. Organized crime groups operate multiple bawdy houses across a city and some are believed to associate with prostitution rings in other cities.

Investigations found that Asian sex workers are not necessarily recruited from overseas. Most foreign nationals that were found working in bawdy houses had entered Canada legally and looked for sex work after they arrived in Canada.

Some convicted offenders of domestic human trafficking were found to be affiliated with street gangs known to law enforcement for pimping.

Domestic human trafficking victims have mostly been recruited through the Internet or by an acquaintance. The victims were groomed, manipulated, and coerced to enter the sex trade.

African nationals who were identified as victims of human trafficking were trafficked for sexual exploitation outside of and before arriving in Canada.

Significant human trafficking indicators were identified in some cases involving foreign national domestic workers who were smuggled into Canada by their employers. These live-in domestic workers were controlled, threatened, underpaid, and forced to work by their employers.

The report comes a week after the federal government announced a national campaign to educate Canadians about the crime of human trafficking, in which victims are mainly forced into the sex trade. The advertising campaign is designed to alert Canadians on how to spot and recognize possible trafficking cases.

The government announced its anti-trafficking campaign as it struggles with how to handle migrants who land on Canadian shores seeking refugee status. A ship carrying almost 500 people from Sri Lanka arrived earlier this summer and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has suggested they could be part of a human smuggling operation.

Human smuggling can often turn into trafficking if passengers are unable to make the payments for the journey.

A RCMP news release said that more than 40 law enforcement organizations, as well as the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, contributed to the RCMP report.

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Human trafficking a domestic and international issue, RCMP report says