Vancouver massage parlours and escort services are frequently supplied with women from China and Korea. They
come to Canada thinking they are getting legitimate jobs. Toronto nightclubs hire Eastern European women as dancers
who are then forced into prostitution. But in Prairie cities like
Edmonton, Winnipeg and Saskatoon, as well as in Vancouver,
there’s another group that is victimized by sex trafficking.
“Here we’ve got local supply,” states Saskatoon’s Curniski.
“Local supply” refers to the aboriginal girls and women
who are enticed to come to the city from northern reserves
– or come willingly looking for work – and are quickly
prostituted by family members or acquaintances.
“It’s like a pandemic,” says Miller. “Aboriginal women
are so overrepresented in street prostitution.” The average
age of a girl entering prostitution is between 14 and 16, she
FIGHT TRAFFICKING
WHEN YOU TRAVEL
If you travel (even on a mission trip), international Justice mis- sion Canada offers these tips and guidelines for being aware of and reporting suspected cases of human trafficking.
• Read up on the country you will be visiting. There are many
watchdog organizations that track human rights offences. The
U.s. state department issues a country-by-country report on
trafficking in human persons. Find a link at www.evangelical
fellowship.ca/humantrafficking.
• Before your trip, learn about human trafficking. For example,
from the Canadian government on child sex tourism: www.
voyage.gc.ca/publications/child-crime-enfants-eng.asp. The
RCmp offers a Q&a resource, including how to report suspected trafficking: www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/imm-passp/q-a-traf-ficking-traite-eng.htm.
• For video clips of helpful information presented by iJm on various
TV shows, visit www.ijm.ca/media.html.
• if during your travels you witness an exploitive situation, don’t
approach it directly – to avoid endangering yourself or the
victim. Check out the RCmp resource listed above. Report your
suspicions to both local authorities and the Canadian consulate or embassy in the country you are visiting (listed at www.
travel.gc.ca/offices). also report to international organizations
(a list of country-specific hotlines: www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/
other/2009/ 121161.htm).
• after your trip, continue your education on human trafficking.
Book an iJm speaker ( info@ijm.ca) to come to your church or
community group. Canadians are making a difference in this
global fight.
• pray for government officials combating sex trafficking, victims impacted by it and ngos fighting it in the country you
are visiting. n –KAREN STILLER
In Manitoba, dozens of aboriginal women – most of them
young – have gone missing or have been found murdered. Two
teenage girls whose bodies were found in roadside ditches this
past summer are thought to be victims of trafficking.
INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS
A couple of years ago, Commissioner Christine MacMillan,
who formerly headed The Salvation Army in Canada and now
works in New York, was speaking at a conference in Australia where she had breakfast with the EFC’s Geoff Tunnicliffe,
who is currently serving as international director of the World
Evangelical Alliance.
Tunnicliffe had a question for her: would she be the WEA’s
spokesperson for human trafficking? If she wasn’t sure of her
answer, it became clear shortly after when, at a WEA assembly
in Thailand, a young man rose to the floor to ask what the
organization was planning to do about human trafficking. “It
was like a clarion call,” MacMillan remembers.
But she felt the issue was bigger and more complex than
could be dealt with by one spokesperson. Earlier this year the
WEA created an international task force to respond to the
problem. For MacMillan, to fight trafficking meshes with the
WEA’s mission, which “wants churches to seek transformation,
holiness and justice.”
WHAT ABOUT RESCUE?
Rescuing the victims of trafficking is a difficult and dangerous business. Most organizations leave that work up to the
professionals or partner with experts.
McIntosh remembers the sickening feeling he got as he was
led into an alley on the outskirts of Phnom Penh and was offered
three little girls to be raped for $100 each. “I don’t think I’ve
been as close to evil as that place,” he says. “This was the very
front line of hell. I just wanted to whisk these girls away.”
He couldn’t do that but he was able to make sure the girls
were left unharmed. “Thankfully our team of investigators
has invested in scores of young children,” he adds. IJM is one
of the few organizations that is directly involved in rescuing victims and bringing perpetrators to justice. In La Paz,
Bolivia, for example, IJM’s investigative work has made a
difference. “We’ve more than doubled the rate of convictions
for traffickers and assailants,” McIntosh says.
McConaghy describes a Christian children’s club in the
middle of a neighbourhood of brothels where kids as young
as four or five play and do crafts during the day “then put on
their dresses and lipstick at night” to be sold. When they come
back to the club the next day, “some are too sore to sit down.
Some have blood on their clothing.” Still, because of the risk
and because of local police corruption, Ratanak doesn’t in-
