Human Trafficking: Eyes Wide Open

If you think someone is a victim of human trafficking, call the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline, 9-1-1, or your local police.

What is Human Trafficking?

Human trafficking is an offence under the Criminal Code of Canada and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. According to the Government of Canada, the extent of human trafficking, both in Canada and internationally, is difficult to assess due to the hidden nature of the crime, the reluctance of victims and witnesses to come forward to law enforcement and the difficulty of identifying victims.

Human trafficking is the exploitation of human beings for gain. Trafficking exploitation can exist in many forms and usually entails victims being caused to provide sexual services or labour through force, coercion, deception and/or abuse of trust, power or authority.

Anyone can fall victim to this crime, although women and girls represent the majority of victims in Canada. Those who are at risk also include Indigenous women and girls; new immigrants; 2SLGBTQI+ persons; children and youth in the child welfare system; those who are socially or economically disadvantaged; and migrant workers who may be particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse due to many factors, such as language barriers, working in isolated/remote areas, lack of access to services and support, and lack of access to accurate information about their rights.

Human trafficking results in substantial physical, psychological, and emotional trauma to the victims.

"It happens everywhere. It doesn't matter if you're from a challenged area or an affluent area or if you're from a big city or a small town," says RCMP Cpl. David Lane, an investigator with the Nova Scotia Provincial Human Trafficking Team.

Seeing the signs in hotels: Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking

According to a report from the U.S.-based Polaris, 75 per cent of U.S.-based human trafficking survivors report having some contact with a hotel or motel during their trafficking experience. This number stresses the fact that the hospitality industry, which includes hotels and motels, but also business, casinos, amusement parks, cruises and other tourism-related events, is a known sector for both sex and labour trafficking activity. Following are some of the reasons why and the solutions that can be put in place to make the hospitality industry a less welcoming option to traffickers.

When it comes to trafficking, hotels, motels and casinos are preferred locations for the facilitation of sex trafficking activity because they can provide traffickers with a sense of anonymity and privacy. Common tactics used by traffickers to disguise the illicit activity can include selecting larger hotels with busy staff, using third-party booking sites, or reserving the room in the victim’s name and paying cash.

Although these establishments might have a hard time identifying potential victims, they can nonetheless be held accountable for what happens on their property. Hotels and other hospitality businesses can be held liable under provisions in the Criminal Code if staff knowingly permit someone under the age of 18 onto their property for the purpose of engaging in commercial sexual activity, i.e. sex trafficking. While there hasn’t yet been this type of class action in Canada, it is not outside of the realm of possibilities.

In the United States, there have been a number of high-profile civil suits brought by survivors of trafficking who ascertain that the hotels knowingly turned a blind eye to their exploitation and thus, actually profited from their exploitation.

Human trafficking can also happen in the hospitality industry in the form of labour trafficking. In 2019, 43 foreign nationals were identified as victims of labour trafficking who had been deceived and forced to work for a cleaning service at hotels across Ontario’s cottage country. In this particular case, the victims were exploited by a third-party sub-contracting business and the hotels in which they worked had no knowledge of the abuse taking place.

Individuals who are exploited in the hospitality industry for forced labour are often brought to Canada under various work visas to fill labour shortages for housekeeping, front-of-house staff, maintenance and bar and restaurant personnel.

The inherent risks linked to Temporary Work Visas in Canada are numerous.

The hospitality industry must therefore do its due diligence when utilizing subtractors and recruiters to ensure they are not unknowingly contributing to the exploitation of others. Hotels and other hospitality businesses must also be aware of the potential for human trafficking in the supply chain of goods and products they purchase, including coffee, hotel linens and other equipment. Proposed supply chain legislation would potentially see Canadian businesses have to meet reporting and compliance obligations to ensure they are taking the necessary steps to keep a trafficking-free supply chain for goods and labour.

That’s why, for all the above-mentioned reasons, it is so important for the hospitality industry to ensure they are taking steps to deter sex trafficking on their grounds and human trafficking in their labour supply chain.

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR WAYS THAT HOTELS, MOTELS, CASINOS AND OTHER INDUSTRY VENDORS CAN ADDRESS THIS ISSUE:

• Do yearly education and awareness training for all staff (front and back of house) that goes beyond the key indicators of trafficking, but also provides staff with important contextual information and considerations.

• Post the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline number in high-traffic places for both employees and guests (i.e. break rooms, lobby restrooms, front desk, elevators and on door hangers).

• Consult those with lived experience to ensure your establishment adopts public, person-centred policies and procedures that articulate your commitment to this issue and the steps being taken to address it.

• Ensure you have clear policies and reporting guidelines for employees should they suspect trafficking activity on the business property, within the workforce or in the supply chain.

• Develop employment skills training programs for survivors which provide pathways to legitimate employment.

• Make your establishment less trafficking friendly, i.e. have an in-person check-in for all reservations which require identification and a credit card for payment, not cash.

• Donate rewards points or vouchers to local charities or partner with local anti-trafficking organizations and/or shelters to provide emergency housing when shelters are full.

• Provincial governments should look to mandate that all employees are properly trained and that establishments keep track of transactions and post the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline number publicly as a part of their licensing process.

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS IN CANADA, 2020: FACTS

• Police services in Canada reported 2,977 incidents of human trafficking—that is, recruiting, transporting, transferring, holding, concealing and exercising control over a person for the purposes of exploitation—between 2010 and 2020.

• During this time, nearly nine in ten (86 per cent) incidents of human trafficking were reported in census metropolitan areas, compared with around six in ten (58 per cent) violent incidents overall.

• More than half (57 per cent) of the incidents involved human trafficking offences alone while 43 per cent involved at least one other type of violation, most often related to the sex trade.

• The vast majority (96 per cent) of detected victims of human trafficking were women and girls. In all, one in four (25 per cent) victims were under the age of 18. Meanwhile, one in five (20 per cent) were aged 25 to 34.

• Just over half (52 per cent) of all human trafficking incidents had no accused person identified in connection with the incident.

• The large majority (81 per cent) of persons accused of human trafficking were men and boys. Most commonly, accused persons were aged 18 to 24 (41 per cent), followed by those aged 25 to 34 (36 per cent).

• Based on results from a record linkage, there were 1,793 unique persons accused of police-reported human trafficking between 2009 and 2020. Three-quarters (75 per cent) of these accused had previously been implicated in other criminal activity. Following an initial contact with police for human trafficking, one in nine (11 per cent) accused were implicated in a separate incident of human trafficking during the reference period.

• Between 2009/2010 and 2019/2020, there were 834 cases completed in adult criminal courts that involved at least one charge of human trafficking.

• Human trafficking cases took almost twice as long to complete than violent adult criminal court cases. The median amount of time it took to complete an adult criminal court case involving at least one violent charge was 176 days. In contrast, it took a median of 373 days to complete a case involving at least one human trafficking charge.

• As the most serious decision in adult criminal court, a finding of guilt was less common for cases involving human trafficking (12 per cent) than for those involving sex trade charges (33 per cent) or violent charges (48 per cent).