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 News from Around the Americas | March 2007 
New Light on Canadian Sex Trade
 Laura Czekaj - ottawasun.com
While Barbara MacLaren was studying politics in Puebla, Mexico, she began to hear about the missing girls.
"I heard that young girls, mainly teenagers, were being abducted from rural Mexican homes and being brought to the cities," she said.
Once there, MacLaren's sources said, the girls were forced into the sex trade.
"My immediate reaction was clearly one of shock and incredulity and immediately wanting to be able to do something about it," she said. "To raise awareness or to bring about a change."
It was this uneasy introduction to human trafficking that encouraged the co-chair for the Rights and Democracy Delegation of Carleton University to pursue it as the theme for a public forum being held tomorrow night.
Out of the Shadows: Voices from the Global Sex Trade will feature a number of speakers and a film screening.
Combating the international migration of women and children who get caught up in the web of sex slavery is not an easy task.
"It's something that is difficult to do because of the underground nature and the need to have political will to address the underlying root causes of trafficking," MacLaren said.
According to The Protection Project, operated by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., Canada is not immune to the horrors of human trafficking.
"Canada is a country of transit and destination for trafficking in women and children," said a 2005 report.
It said that Asia-based criminal organizations recruit women from Asian countries to work in brothels and massage parlours in Canadian cities. There is also a large internal trafficking of both Canadians and foreigners.
The report goes on to say that at last estimate, in 1998, between 8,000 and 16,000 people were trafficked each year.
"It's a transnational problem that we can only come up with a durable solution to through international co-operation," said MacLaren.
Cheryl Hotchkiss, women's rights co-ordinator for Amnesty International Canada, said just the thought that women are being duped into trusting someone who is offering them a better life or employment, but is then forced into sexual slavery is a tough pill for many average Canadians to swallow.
The federal government has granted temporary residency permits to women who have been trafficked. But Hotchkiss said many of these women don't initially seek help from authorities, instead turning to chronically underfunded women support agencies.
"There are few resources to provide medical, physiological and social support to women who have been trafficked and have managed to get out of those situations."
rightsand-democracy@gmail.com. |
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