CANADA: UBC law professor is shocked by lack of prosecutions in this country
Canada has a “shocking” record in human trafficking, says University of B.C. law professor Benjamin Perrin.
He cited an RCMP estimate that 600 people are trafficked into Canada each year, and noted that as a transit country, another 1,500 to 2,200 people are trafficked from Canada to the U.S. each year.
“Those figures are extremely conservative and yet in the last calendar year there have been successful prosecutions” of human traffickers in Canada, Perrin, a leading investigator in human trafficking and child-sex tourism, said yesterday.
“Vulnerable foreign nationals” are being trafficked as well as “at-risk” Canadian women and girls, typically those who have been sexually abused and are living in poverty.
“There are 12 women and girls in Ontario recently who were being trafficked, one only 13 years old”, said Perrin.
“It is quite shocking to see how poor Canada’s record has been” in prosecuting human traffickers, said Perrin, noting that Canada’s record lags far behind Australia, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy and even the U.S.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice will release the eight annual Trafficking In Persons report today.
It will rate the efforts of 170 countries, including Canada, to protect and aid trafficked persons, prosecute traffickers and prevent the burgeoning crime by those who exploit vulnerable people, usually woman, for profit.
For the first time this year, the U.S. report will also look at how nations are preventing child-sex tourism, by aggressively investigating and prosecuting their own citizens who exploit children in other countries.
Perrin, who wrote a 2007 report on the potential for sexual enslavement leading up to the 2010 Olympics, says B.C. and Canada have taken some steps to halt trafficking but need to do much more.
“Canada has begun to improve the legislative framework for prosecuting traffickers and to protect trafficked persons,” said Perrin.
He noted that Premier Gordon Campbell “quietly and without fanfare” opened the Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons last July, headed by Robin Pike, under the Solicitor-General’s Ministry.
The office’s website cites the 2005 prosecution of Michael Ng, who was cleared of human trafficking but convicted of related charges, including operating a bawdy house and procuring a person to have illicit sexual intercourse. The federal government recently pledged to offer more assistance to victims who come forward, offering them quicker access to legal status and shelter if required.
“What is needed now is a national and provincial commitment to vigorously put law enforcement and victim-assistance laws into action,” said Perrin.
“What is needed now is a national and provincial commitment to vigorously put law enforcement and victim-assistance laws into action,” said Perrin.
RCMP border integrity Cpl. Norm Massie, who has been replaced as B.C. human trafficking co-ordinator by Const. Lou Berube, questioned the estimated number of human-trafficking cases in Canada. “I think we have done a good job, we’ve investigated anything remotely close to a human-trafficking case,” said Massie, although he admits there have been no successful prosecutions of traffickers in Canada.
As for halting child-sex tourism, Perrin says, “Canada continues to be an international embarrassment.”
Perrin found through an Access to Information report that 146 Canadians were charged with child-sex offences from 1993 to 2007, based on reques5ts for consular support, yet only one Canadian, Vancouver hotel worker, Donald Baker, has ever been convicted here under laws against child-sex tourism.
|
