Invisible Chains (8 page)

Canada continues to appear reluctant to recognize smuggled migrants as trafficked persons where indicators of potential exploitation on arrival become evident. True, the challenge is significant. On one hand, countries such as Canada need to prevent human trafficking and protect potential victims at the earliest stage possible. On the other hand, becoming more accommodating of smuggled migrants increases the potential appeal for traffickers and other criminals to profit from illegal entry, undermining the security and integrity of Canada's borders.

Where children are involved, a cautious approach is clearly necessary, as demonstrated by the United Kingdom. The alternative is for Canada and other countries to tolerate the potential for severe abuse of children.

Hope after decades of sexploitation

Lawlessness
and
collapse
are the two words most appropriate, and most frequently used, to describe Ukraine through the late 1980s. As the country's economic malaise deepened and the Communist hold loosened, organized crime stepped in to fill the power vacuum.

During this volatile period Katya, a nine-year-old Ukrainian girl, was abducted to be sold for sex. For more than two decades, Katya served as a slave, devoid of comfort, rewards, or freedom. After having been sold to traffickers in Africa, Europe, and North America, she was brought to Canada by her newest “owner,” who expected to reap more profit from her body. His venture did not succeed. The countless acts of rape that Katya had endured from the age of nine to her midthirties had made her so volatile and hard to control that her trafficker dumped her outside a hospital in Edmonton in 2005.

In addition to being diagnosed with schizophrenia, Katya was suffering from severe depression. She still walks with a noticeable limp,
a persistent reminder of the brutality she suffered over much of her life. The treatment prescribed for victims like Katya is almost identical to that for victims of extended and substantial torture.

“Imagine you've been kidnapped when you're nine years old, in one of the developing countries, and then sold to a developed country,” suggests Tracey Campbell, a consultant with Alberta Employment and Immigration who's assisting Katya in her recovery. “Imagine the damage it would do, how devastating it would be, and how much work a psychologist would have to do for you.”

Three years after her release, Katya was continuing to improve. She completed a course in English as a Second Language (ESL) and began to dream of becoming a nurse. The first independent choice she is making in her adult life is to care for others.

“The humiliation experienced by the victims is deep and profound,” says Loly Rico. “At one point they felt used, they were raped. But some begin to believe that this is their role as women. And for them to change that role is very hard.”

Rico has had difficulty finding qualified counsellors to assist foreign victims of human trafficking, in particular professionals who speak languages other than English. Some victims resist counselling because they want to “forget about that life,” an understandable reaction but one that delays their long-term rehabilitation.

Mumbi—a story of resistance, courage, and survival

Like many young women in Kenya, Mumbi was eager to travel and work overseas. In 2001, she accepted an offer that proved too good to be true—help with her travel costs to Canada. On arrival, Mumbi was locked inside a Montreal-area hotel room and told that she would be sold for sex to repay the “investment.”

The traffickers tried to break Mumbi's resistance. Keeping her confined, they forced her to watch pornographic movies, a “grooming process” used to eradicate sexual inhibitions and “train” victims for the services they would be expected to perform. Withholding food,
Mumbi's captors kept up the pressure for four days while she resisted their orders despite threats of severe physical abuse. Then a chance at freedom presented itself. In a moment of inattention by her captors, Mumbi escaped and made her way to a women's shelter, where she sought comfort and assistance.

Soon after Mumbi arrived at the shelter, however, staff became concerned about men lurking nearby in parked cars and telephone callers demanding to know Mumbi's whereabouts. For her safety, Mumbi was moved to another location and later granted refugee status that permitted her to remain in Canada. The situation in Kenya was too perilous for her to return.

Although cause for joy and celebration, Mumbi's escape from traffickers in sexual services is atypical. Linguistic and cultural barriers, combined with isolation, keep many foreign women trapped in operations where they are exploited “under the radar” of law enforcement agencies and society at large.

In September 2009, police in Edmonton uncovered a human trafficking operation at the “Sachi Professional Massage and Spa” where, they alleged, three women from Fiji and one from China were “forced to eat, sleep and perform sex acts for money in the same room.” Many massage parlours in the Vancouver area cater only to an Asian clientele, promoting themselves exclusively in a foreign language and hanging up if a caller speaks English. These barriers make it more difficult to access potential victims.

Dancing slaves in a strip club near you

Enslavement as a means of forcing women to perform sex acts with strangers isn't restricted to massage parlours and brothels. Whatever one may think of strip clubs and their activities, the reality often includes young women living and performing under coercion.

Federal officials in Canada express grave concerns about the exploitation of foreign women as exotic dancers, particularly women from Central and Eastern Europe. For some time these women were being brought into Canada legally and expeditiously under the
federal government's “exotic dancer visa program.” Concerns about trafficking caused the program to be largely shut down, but trepidation persists.

A March 2007 email to the Canadian Embassy in Romania from a regional intelligence officer for the Canada Revenue Agency in Niagara Falls, Ontario, identified aspects of the problem. “I have read some dancer contracts and a couple of clauses really troubled me,” the officer wrote. According to her report, one clause stated, “[T]he club owners have the right to hold all ID until the terms of the contract are fulfilled,” while another required “that monies will be held until terms of the contract are fulfilled, less disbursements. These two clauses themselves smack of slavery.”

Frederick Matern, one of Canada's top immigration officials in Bucharest, replied in a detailed, but heavily censored, email obtained under the
Access to Information Act.
Among other things, Matern raised concerns about women from the region being brought to Canada to work as exotic dancers, including evidence of blatant deception by the contractors. “In order to conform to HRSDC [Human Resources and Social Development Canada] requir[e]ments,” Matern noted, “we are getting shown very different contracts by people seeking work permits. I suspect that the contracts that conform to HRSDC are nowhere close to the truth.”

Indeed, in a case documented by the Canada Border Services Agency, a woman from Romania came to Canada under a work permit as an exotic dancer. Soon after arriving, she was reportedly “forced to do things that she did not wish to do ... was unable to take sick time when required ... [and] there were elements of coercion and threats against her from the bar owners and supervisors.” CIC officials subsequently found the woman to be a victim of human trafficking and offered her assistance.

Micro-brothels—the (trafficked) girl next door

In November 2006, two investigative reporters from the
Toronto Star
uncovered a new and disturbing development in Canada's sex
trade: The practice of providing sexual services through massage parlours, which were too easily identified and raided by police officers, largely had been abandoned in favour of rooms in high- rise apartment buildings. These “micro-brothels” are often right next door to apartments occupied by families, many of them with small children. While low-income neighbourhoods have been home to “trick pads” for decades, “micro-brothels” represent a recent migration of the sex industry into middle- and upper-class communities.

Micro-brothels are set up in hotel and motel rooms, as well as apartment units and luxury condominiums. Their secret locations are disclosed to men who respond to advertisements for “escorts” or more explicit advertisements on internet bulletin board websites and weekly newspapers. Embedded in our communities, they become venues for the sexual exploitation of victims of human trafficking. Because they “hide in plain sight,” micro-brothels are quickly becoming common outlets for purchasing sex and keeping trafficking victims concealed, constantly on the move, and difficult to identify and assist. Once again, these victims are forced to meet the demands of the traffickers without recourse or opportunity for help.

A law enforcement officer in Peel Region, a suburb of Metropolitan Toronto, has participated in several raids on micro-brothels in his jurisdiction and constantly is appalled at what he discovers. “When you look around,” he explains, “what do they have in there? A little bit of food. There are no pictures of their family. The first thing you notice is this does not look lived in. You might see a little suitcase in the closet, with just some clothing. No personal effects at all. They don't live there. They are taken somewhere every night.”

The benefits of micro-brothels to human traffickers are significant. Massage parlours, as noted earlier, practically identify the true nature of their business and attract attention from law enforcement and citizens' groups. Escort services may provide the women with a measure of temporary freedom, increasing the risk that they may
flee and turn against their captors. Micro-brothels involve neither disadvantage. If, as anticipated, law enforcement officers more actively investigate and prosecute human traffickers in Canada, these secretive outlets for exploitation are expected to multiply rapidly as traffickers take their victims even further underground.

4

ACROSS THE UNDEFENDED BORDER

O
soyoos is a dry, dusty town of about five thousand people in the British Columbia interior, roughly four hundred kilometres east of Vancouver. The community lies close to Washington State, a crossing point along the almost nine-thousand-kilometre Canada–U.S. border. Historically, Osoyoos first served as a north–south trading route for fur and cattle and more recently as a cross-border transfer point for agricultural products. At least once in recent times, it became an entry point for the attempted trade in people.

In June 2006, local citizens in Osoyoos grew suspicious when a man in a large rental van accompanied by a group of Asian women began asking about nearby remote routes for entering the United States. In a small town, word travels fast. When local police learned of the traveller, his cadre of women, and his interest in a clandestine point of entry to the United States, they began keeping an eye on him and contacted the RCMP.

The police eventually arrested the man and the women. All of the women were South Korean and none spoke English, but the signs of intent to cross the border were clear. The women were terrified at having been apprehended, and following a series of interviews, it became apparent that they'd been duped into coming to the United States through Canada, their destiny to be sold for sex.

This revelation shocked the six women who ranged in age from twenty-two to twenty-eight, all of whom expected to be employed
in restaurants. Lou Berube, the RCMP's human trafficking awareness coordinator for British Columbia and the Yukon, believed them. “I'm absolutely convinced at this point that we have human trafficking victims here,” he says, suggesting the women had been recruited and transported for sexual exploitation. Although the women could have applied for temporary immigrant status to ensure they would not be mistreated or victimized if they returned home, all six chose to leave Canada.

We Canadians may be proud of many aspects of life in our country, but for the majority of people worldwide, the United States of America remains the magnet for prosperity. For some criminals, this prosperity is built upon the backs of slave labour—and for those who plan to achieve their wealth in this manner, Canada is a stepping stone to the United States, even with the heightened border restrictions since 9/11.

An attractive transit hub

For almost a decade, the U.S. State Department has identified Canada in its annual
Trafficking in Persons Report
as a transit point for human trafficking into the United States. While not required for human trafficking, the movement of a victim is a key aspect of international trafficking.

The traffickers identify vulnerable individuals and bring them to markets where they can earn the greatest profits, a journey that often involves transporting the victims through transit countries. During this process, the victims are easier to control because they are isolated from family and friends and frequently don't understand the language of the transit or destination country.

Government reports have identified almost one hundred transit countries for human trafficking, most with common characteristics. These include the following:

•  geographic proximity by land, sea, or air to significant destination countries;

•  
an operational criminal infrastructure to facilitate entry and exit of individuals;

•  insufficient legislation and weak law enforcement to deal with migrant smuggling and human trafficking; and

•  immigration policies open to abuse.

The United States is a significant destination country for forced labour and sex trafficking, with an estimated 14,500 to 17,500 victims brought in every year across land borders with Canada and Mexico, as well as by sea or air from countries worldwide. Since 9/11, airports have become “harder targets” for entry into the United States, making land crossings far more attractive to the traffickers.