Criminal Exploitation of Women and Girls

 " It is in many ways big business for gangs or organized crime. Studies show traffickers in Canada can receive an annual financial gain of $250,000 for each woman or girl they've trafficked or sexually exploited.
"Many members of the Canadian public are unaware of how serious and significant the issue of trafficking of women and girls is here in Canada."
Sandra Diaz, The Canadian Women's Foundation national task force

Society is concerned, and most certainly has delivered its opinion to the federal government that the issue must be investigated, a solution found to the plight of aboriginal women, abused, missing, found murdered in numbers far outweighing their demographic presence within Canadian society.

Public Safety Canada has now launched research into trends and issues in the trafficking of aboriginal women and girls, on the basis of previous studies which conclude that the involvement of both criminal organizations and the women's own family members represents a trend that "appears to be a significant complicating factor" in their exploitation.

The research to be undertaken will include discussions with those figures providing services to trafficked aboriginal women and girls, the vulnerable communities from which they come, along with those who have undertaken studies of the issue, and investigators or those prosecuting crimes involving trafficked female aboriginals.

The researchers have been instructed to describe the extent and those situations where family members are involved in the victimization of their female relatives. To clarify the relationship between human trafficking and domestic violence.

The study results are meant to outline the manner in which gangs and criminal organizations are involved. That family members are indeed involved in the trafficking of their own relatives within the country is agreed upon among experts, citing previous validated studies. Michele Audette, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada based in Ottawa, recounted narratives heard from aboriginal parents themselves who have sold their own children for casual sex, to enable them to pay for their addictions.

"I listened to some families where, because of their addiction to drugs and drinking, every two weeks they were trafficking their own children. I was so shocked. It's a small number, but it's there. Because of that, we cannot stay quiet or deny this reality doesn't exist in our First Nations communities." A national task force on sex trafficking of girls and young women in Canada funded by The Canadian Women's Foundation has interviewed over 150 organizations, spoken with female survivors of sex trafficking.

Gangs and organized crime "are definitely at the helm of this enormous and serious issue that's happening right here in Canada. We haven't seen that there is an epidemic of families trafficking their daughters in Canada", said Sandra Diaz, member of the task force's team looking toward evaluating the results  of the Public Safety research , "to get a sense of how big a percentage that is. There's an enormous need for more research. We don't have data. It doesn't exist in a way that is comprehensive and deep. So any research is good research."

It isn't, needless to say, only aboriginal women and girls who are jobbed out in this horrendously demeaning, de-humanizingly-abusive manner. Others within Canadian society become victims of the same atrocious fate. "One of the saddest cases I have seen was a young boy who was trafficked by his dad across Canada when he was eight years old for sexual services. The dad serviced his addictions from that", said Joy Smith, Manitoba MP who has worked on the human trafficking issue for over a decade.

When Anette Sikka, a 2009 L.D candidate at University of Ottawa undertook a study of the trafficking in aboriginal women and girls in Canada, participants in her research explained that many girls' entry to the sex trade was facilitated through familial or peer relationships. They "spoke of sisters coercing or forcing younger siblings into the sex trade to make money", she explained. "Many older women are unable to survive through their sex trade earnings, and thus engage younger family members into the trade."