WUNRN
Direct Link to Full 149-Page 2013
Report:
Service
and Capacity Review For Victims of Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking in
Nunavut, Canada”
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CANADA - INDIGENOUS GIRLS LURED
& PRESSURED TO ENTER THE SEX TRADE YOUNGER & YOUNGER
Apr 2 2014
Kimmy (not her real name) was just 12 years old the first time she gave a grown man a handjob for money. Her 13-year old sister helped, and the more they giggled, the more money they got. “It was bizarre,” Kimmy says. “It's one of those times where it's like, is this really happening?”
Kimmy was introduced to the sex industry by her biological sister when she lived in a foster home in northern Ontario. She is just one of many young Indigenous girls exploited—or trafficked—in Canada. But it isn't just pimps, johns, or gangs, who are doing the trafficking. Increasingly, it can be their own family members and relatives; and it's taking place in Indigenous communities, or in towns and cities, across the country.
According to the Canadian justice system's definition, human trafficking usually happens because of force, threats or coercion. However, a national human trafficking task force is seeking to change the legal definition: “The traffickers have changed in how they are recruiting, luring and controlling women,” says Diane Redsky, project director of the Human Trafficking Task Force at the Canadian Women's Foundation. Redsky is also from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation in western Ontario.
She says these days, Indigenous women who are trafficked don't necessarily fear for their safety nor are fear tactics always used. “The trafficking of Indigenous women and girls is conducted very differently,” says Redsky. “The victims are ‘trauma bonding’ with their traffickers.”
Redsky says "trauma bonding" is less like fear and more like a strong sense of loyalty: “Traffickers are becoming fathers and husbands to their victims,” explains Redsky.
In the case of Kimmy, it was her own sister.
Kimmy says she performed sex acts out of not just loyalty to her sister—but
also guilt. A desire to help and protect. “There's a tight bond, especially for
younger children and teens—the pimping out—there's a strong family connection
there,” says Helen Roos. Roos is the principle researcher behind a report
released earlier this year on sexual exploitation and human trafficking in
Nunavut.
Children and youth with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) or learning
disabilities are also at-risk of being pimped out to bring in money or material
goods for the family, says Roos.
Roos says poverty can be a big factor in the sexual exploitation of children by family members or friends. And the children are getting younger and younger. Her research revealed that at the community level, girls as young as 10 to 11 years old are being pimped out.
“The demand is seeking younger and younger girls—that's an extreme sexual fetish,” says Roos.
For their research, the Canadian Women Foundation met with over 250 organizations and 160 survivors of sexual exploitation between 2013 and 2014. It's part a $2 million dollar strategy to address human trafficking. The Foundation is also developing recommendations and an anti-trafficking strategy for the Federal Government. But they also know they need to move fast.
“What we know about human trafficking in Canada is that traffickers will gain financially more for an underage girl than they will for an adult woman,“ says Redsky. When they hit their early 20s, girls are not considered as valuable to traffickers anymore, but those who remain in the industry face serious risks as well.
“By the time they're 40, they're dying,” says Redsky. “Our bodies are not meant to have sex with 10-15 men a day, 7 days a week.” Roos says kids are being numbed to the sexual exploitation—but she also says the sexual exploitation is beginning to span generations.
“My granny used to work too,” says Kimmy. And now Kimmy's own daughter is involved in prostitution in northern Ontario as well.
Currently drawing up recommendations to present to the Department of Justice to seek changes in the legislation, the Canadian Women's Foundation is also designing an anti-trafficking strategy. "There will be a role for everyone including government, non-profit organizations, funding sources, including the foundation," says Redsky. "Everyone will have a role in Canada."
Their anti-trafficking strategy will be launched in the Fall 2014.
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CANADA - NATIVE INUIT CHILD SELLING,
ABUSE, TRAFFICKING - GIRLS
Inuit babies and children are being sold by their families, sometimes into prostitution, according to a new report funded by the Department of Justice that explores the wider issue of human trafficking of Inuit women and girls in Canada.
The report, compiled by Ottawa-area consultant Helen Roos, alleges that Inuit in the north are buying and selling their babies and children, children are being “prostituted out by a parent, family member or domestic partner,” and Inuit are also being “lured” and “groomed” to the south by traffickers through various means including dating websites. In addition, Inuit teens in groups homes are being pimped out by other teens, and some Inuit youth in protective care in Ottawa are allegedly trafficked when they move out after turning 18.
People need to start connecting the dots, they need to stop being so complacent, particularly where children are concerned
“People need to start connecting the dots, they need to stop being so complacent, particularly where children are concerned,” says Ms. Roos, president and principal consultant at Roos-Remillard Consulting Services. “We better start waking up.”
Her findings include instances of Inuit families and individuals in the north allegedly “attempting to buy and sell Inuit babies, children, and teenaged youth.” She cites an Inuk man’s attempt to sell a young child through Facebook, which the RCMP intercepted, and another man who attempted to purchase a newborn baby from an Inuit mother outside an Iqaluit hospital, which she reported to hospital officials.
The 146-page report is largely anecdotal, based on interviews and conversations with members of Inuit communities in Nunavut and Ottawa, government officials, and health and social services employees.
The report also highlights “distinct travel patterns” of teenage girls travelling to cities in the south from Nunavut.
The Qimaavik women’s shelter in Iqaluit reported hearing from several Inuit families that they received between $15,000 and $20,000 from individuals for each of their underage daughters, who were then flown to Canadian cities, with the majority of them ending up in Winnipeg.
“They were not told exactly where the girls were going. They don’t say ‘human trafficking’ … they say ‘for prostitution’
Suny Jacob, Qimaavik’s executive director, confirmed in an interview with the National Post she has been told by families they were paid “by an agent, a pimp, to use their girls, who are probably aged anywhere between 11-14 … there was one case where the girl was 9 years old.”
“They were not told exactly where the girls were going,” she says. “They don’t say ‘human trafficking’ … they say ‘for prostitution.’”
Inuit organizations in Winnipeg said they were unaware of any such cases. However, Larissa Maxwell, manager at Deborah’s Gate, a human trafficking safe house in Vancouver, says her group has been seeing a trend in Inuit and Aboriginal youth being offered flights and other forms of travel to B.C. cities and trafficked for sex upon arrival.
Ms. Roos estimates that hundreds of Inuit women and girls are being trafficked. “The report reinforces what a variety of organizations and individuals have experienced and know to be happening,” she says.
Others working with Inuit say it is too early to tell just how extensive the trafficking problem is. They warn against excessive alarm without further research and evidence.
“We definitely need to learn more,” says Katharine Irngaut, manager of abuse prevention at Pauktuutit, an Inuit women’s organization, with whom Ms. Roos consulted during her research. “We don’t yet know how people are being trafficked so we can’t really develop a victim or trafficker profile,” she says. Since the words “human trafficking” do not yet exist in Inuktitut, the language spoken by Inuit, she says the language needs to be developed in order to raise awareness among vulnerable people.
Ms. Roos has more than 15 years experience working with First Nation, Inuit and Métis communities on project development and grant management, according to Roos-Remillard Consulting Services’ website. Ms. Roos is also chair of the Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking.
There are no checks for custom adoption. So if Inuit are trafficking Inuit children, then that is a very easy loophole
Her report raises concerns about Inuit custom adoption, the “largest adoption mechanism used in Nunavut,” and what Ms. Roos describes as a “very easy link” to human trafficking. Inuit custom adoptions, or Inuit customary adoption, are a form of open adoption that typically occurs between Inuit relatives, as sanctioned by an elder. The process involves little bureaucracy and paperwork.
“The problem with that process is there is no process, unlike private adoption where you have to have home visits, criminal background checks,” she says. “There are no checks for custom adoption. So if Inuit are trafficking Inuit children, then that is a very easy loophole.”
Impoverished conditions in which many Canadian Inuit live, coupled with “chronic under-reporting” to the RCMP and government officials, has created fertile ground for sexual exploitation and potential cases of human trafficking, the report says.
Data and statistics on human trafficking in Canada is scant. The report says the RCMP does not provide any official statistics on the numbers of trafficked persons in Canada. However, some social workers view Ms. Roos’ work as a useful first step.
“Helen’s work is the first work of its kind that I’m aware of … to really be asking these kinds of questions,” says Peter Dudding, director of children and family services in Nunavut. Mr. Dudding notes that he is “not directly aware” of any trafficking or suspicious movement of youth in the north.
“We’re not collecting specific data with regards to child trafficking,” he says. “So beyond the kind of perception or the anecdotal information in terms of it being a problem, we don’t really know the extent or magnitude or scope of what the problem is.”
We know that the Inuit population is extremely vulnerable especially when they’re relocated to the south
Yet, Ms. Roos is confident that her findings point to widespread human trafficking of Inuit, especially sex trafficking. The report identifies several “key scenarios” in which Inuit are being trafficked for sex in Ottawa, which has one of the highest populations of Inuit outside of Nunavut.
“We know that the Inuit population is extremely vulnerable especially when they’re relocated to the south,” says Ben Bridgstock, director at Mamisarvik, an Inuit addiction and treatment centre in Ottawa. “They could fall prey to some of these situations.”
Mr. Bridgstock says that while such examples may reinforce Inuit stereotypes, they may also spark the debate needed to overcome them. “If the report leads to a more formalized investigation, hard facts and figures, that would be brilliant.”
Carole Saindon, a Justice Canada spokesperson, said it funded the report as part of its response to ‘‘the issue of human trafficking among Inuit women and girls. The results of this project may help to inform Canada’s ongoing efforts to combat human trafficking.”
According to the report, the RCMP charged a 31-year-old mother in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, with human trafficking in June, 2013. She was allegedly prostituting a minor and will stand trial in the spring.
As of December, 2013, 97 individuals have been convicted in Canada of human trafficking or related offences, such as sexual assault and forcible confinement, says the report.