Human Trafficking in Canada

I read a book earlier this year called "Half the Sky" by the renowned New York Times columnist Nicolas D. Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn which related the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. From sex slavery, female genital mutilation, rape, and various other horrid forms of oppression, Kristof and WuDunn give an eye-opening account of the injustices that are expelled on women in many developing countries.

If you haven't read this book, stop right now, go on Amazon and order it. I'm serious.

Kristof and WuDunn argue that half of the world's workers lie underutilized and the key to economic progress is the opportunity for women to enter the workforce, gain an education, and become equal, if not important, societal and political figures.

I'll give you a link so you can check out the movement yourself. Please take the time to introduce yourself to this subject. Education, in some ways, is our only weapon.

Speaking of horrible injustices done to oppressed women in developing countries, what about women in our own countries? Well, women in America and Canada have great opportunities and share basically the same status as men in these developed nations. Sexism is disappearing with the "values" of tolerance and feminism; and women, more or less, hold an equal place is Western society compared to men. I say more of less because many women are still paid less than men and are discriminated against in certain jobs and such. Also, society still views women as playing the housewife role and submitting to a life at home. However, this ideology has been continually disappearing with the rise of women in the workplace and in educational institutions.

Nevertheless, what would you say if I told you that there is sex trafficking in Canada? "Sex trafficking in Canada?" You would say, "why that's ridiculous. That only occurs in foreign, third world countries!" Well, you are right, sex trafficking does occur in developing countries. In fact, most of the estimated 800,000 people are women and CHILDREN being sex trafficked across international borders every year. Organzied crime rakes in about $12 billion dollars annually from the sale of humans to be sex slaves. Next to drugs and weapons, humans are the most trafficked commodity in the whole world.

However, what you would never guess is that an estimated 800 to 1,200 women and under-age girls are trafficked into Canada every year. These girls come to Canada because money has run out at home and they are promised a job as a Nanny or a waitress. The promises come from organized crime or pimps. When they arrive in Canada, their documents are taken away and they are told they must pay back their travel debt to their holders and are brought to places where they can make the money back "quickly". The girls are brought to strip clubs, massage parlours, exotic showrooms, or the street where they must "work" for a certain period every day and obtain a designated monetary amount. They are then shuttled back to a hotel, or living area, by the holders and brainwashed to believe that they are the criminals because they now have no documents (to stop them from going to the police). Every day that the girls do not make enough money, the deficit is added to their debt owed to the holders. The girls are beaten when they do not smile, gang-raped when they say no to sex, and are critically brainwashed until they just smile and laugh and go along with the whole thing, because they know what will happen if they don't. It makes me shudder when people rationalize prostitution because it is the woman's choice. What if they had no other choice? What if the woman isn't a prostitute, instead, she is being prostituted against her will? In fact, I view all prostitutes this way. No women happily agrees to become a prostitute. A prostitute is not listed under other career choices, such as lawyer, pilot, or teacher, for girls in elementary school. Prostitution is forced onto people because they have no other choice. Trafficked or not, women never want to choose to become a prostitute.

During the Vancouver Olympics, it is estimated that hundreds, if not thousands of girls were trafficked into the city to satisfy the needs of drunken "Johns". These women, and 16, 17... 14 year old girls, are forced to have sex to repay the debt they owe. How is this fact not publicly known? Why are prostitutes criminalized against, when it is the buyers of sex that should be put in jail? They are the ones raping these victims!

Please check out the organization, Hope for the Sold, which is based in Ontario and is working abolish sex slavery and help those who are being prostituted. I am giving you this link so that you can check for yourself where I got these stats and where this information is coming from. Please educate yourself about the expanding human sex trafficking industry and how it is in our own country, in our own cities.