Today, we remember the brutal act of violent misogyny against 14 young students at the Polytechnique Montreal on December 6, 1989. Students who were targeted simply for being women; and still, we need to talk about gender-based violence as a pandemic in Ontario and Toronto as the Governments have recognized the urgency of combating and ending all forms of violence against women.
Human trafficking is a particularly severe example of GBV that, due to the confluence of migration and trafficking, often disproportionately affects migrant women, who are forced into labour and sexual exploitation, Human Trafficking, and other forms of abuse. Globally, women and girls account for 71% of trafficking victims, with migrant women being particularly vulnerable due to their precarious legal and economic status (UNODC, 2020). In Canada, the figures are even higher, with girls and women making up 94% of human trafficking cases nationwide (Statistics Canada, 2021).
The Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking in Canada reported 2,170 cases of human trafficking and 12,706 calls to the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline from 2019 to 2022 (Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, 2022). In Canada, the reality of human trafficking is highly influenced by factors such as gender, migration status, and age. The population with the most reported cases of human trafficking are women aged 18 to 24, who make up 46% of the nationally reported cases (Statistics Canada, 2022).
Migrant women’s vulnerability to trafficking starts at home, where lack of economic opportunities, poor job prospects, and gender discrimination push them to seek their fortunes abroad. Access to regular migration channels is restricted or barred, leaving them vulnerable to smugglers and traffickers and susceptible to their menacing offers. Migrant women lack legal protection in transit and destination countries and knowledge about their rights, making them easy targets for traffickers.
Statistics Canada describes the process of human trafficking as a sequence, where manipulation is the first step in committing this crime. Economic stress and social isolation are primary risk factors for potential human trafficking victims. Perpetrators commonly exploit these social and psychological characteristics to manipulate their victims easily (Statistics Canada, 2022).
Immigrants arriving in Canada are more likely to experience isolation than those born there (Statistics Canada, 2023). Furthermore, migrants from Central and South America, Asia, and the Pacific are the migrant populations with the highest rates of stress and emotional problems (Statistics Canada, 2012). Given that these populations are recognized as minorities in the country, it can be analyzed that they have a high level of vulnerability to being manipulated for human trafficking purposes.
Migrant women are vulnerable to trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation. Traffickers entice women with promises of employment and/or attending school, only to force them to work and sometimes engage in sexual transactions once in the country of destination. Migrant women, and particularly those without legal status, are primarily targeted for trafficking due to their economic vulnerability and social isolation.
Victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation are often held back from claiming their rights and escaping their exploitation by a complex trap of barriers. These include fear of deportation, distrust of public authorities, language barriers, and exploiters’ control over migrant women, including exerting psychological or other forms of violence and threat of physical harm upon their families overseas. The multiple stressors generated by the phenomenon of migration, single parenthood, resettlement, and exploitation are increased by the psychological and physical trauma, and the years of abuse and exploitation strongly affect the victim’s recovery.
It is essential to further investigate the intersection of gender and immigration status as drivers of human trafficking in Canada, so that there are better grounds and capacity to more effectively protect and prevent migrant, refugee and temporary migrant worker women. The numbers and realities of gender-based violence in Canada indicate a victim profile where gender, age, immigration status, social, economic and psychological conditions of human trafficking victims force women to overcome barriers that impose greater social isolation and economic stress than women born in the country.
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