The curse of Human Trafficking - Part 3

Human Trafficking is a 7-9 billion $ industry and is the third largest criminal industry in the world, outranked by only arms and drug dealing. The impact of trafficking on Canada is estimated at between $120 million to $400 million per year and accounts for approximately upwards of 15,000 people arriving in Canada per year illegally. ("Organized Crime Impact Study," Solicitor General of Canada) In Canada a girl can be sold for $15,000 and earn her owner over $40,000 a year.

According to the RCMP, 800 to 1200 people are trafficked in and through Canada annually . Activists, however, think the number is as high as 15,000. Asian victims tend to be trafficked more frequently to Vancouver and Western Canada, while Eastern European and Latin American victims are trafficked more often to Toronto and Eastern Canada. Canadian girls and women, who are mainly aboriginal, are trafficked within Canada for commercial sexual exploitation.

In Atlanta, Pimps are not the business partners they purport to be. They typically take every penny the girls earn. They work the girls seven nights a week. They sometimes tattoo their girls the way ranchers brand their cattle, and they back up their business model with fists and threats. In Bihar, India,Meena was kidnapped from her village in north India by a trafficker and eventually locked up in a 13-girl brothel in the town of Katihar. When she was perhaps 11 or 12 — she remembers only that it was well before she had begun to menstruate — the slaver locked her in a room with a white-haired customer who had bought her virginity. Children in Malawi are forced to work in the tobacco industry and are being exposed to extreme levels of nicotine poisoning

Recently the UN Dept of Drugs&Crimes released a report which highlighted that: -In Central Asia and Eastern Europe 60% of convicted traffickers are woman -The South African region reported the weakest in combating human trafficking. Of the 11 countries only Zambia has prosecuted suspects since 2003 -79% of the victims were found to be exploited sexually - Cases of human trafficking previously overlooked included forced marriages, ritual killings, and organ harvesting.

Overall the report found that although efforts globally have increased substantially since 2003 the majority of countries still remain ill-equipped to combat human trafficking. Joy Smith is the Member of Parliament who is spearheading Bill C-268 to amend the Criminal Code (minimum sentences involving trafficking of persons under the age of 18). The Bill's present status is at "third reading stage". This is the same bill on which the Bloc Q has been doing antsy antics on a tabletop. I thought the Bill was passed into law last month but could not find anything confirming that. My bad, I guess. I am flabbergasted that a simple Bill like C-268 which every MP, if they have one molecule of goodness in them should have passed pronto, is taking months and months on end to become law.

Rebecca Whitaker of the non-profit organization The Future Group says:"Personally, it is difficult to comprehend how the United States can impose harsher penalities for those prosecuted of human trafficking crimes, but Canada has yet to follow. It is time for Canada to speak out against child trafficking, creating a voice for the innocent victims who have been silenced for so long.

The inconsistencies with the current criminal human trafficking sentences need to cease immediately and hopefully this Bill will do just that.Currently, the United States imposes a mandatory minimum sentence for the conviction of sex trafficking of children. If the victim is between the age of 14 and 18, the offender is convicted to a minimum of no less than 10 years imprisonment, which differs greatly from Canada’s current legal system." This vid was made 2 yrs ago If you are a resident of Sarnia, ON., please make the time to watch a documentary being shown on Sep 26 at: Sarnia Public Library Auditorium, 124 Christina St. Telephone the Library for more information/confirmation of date and time.