What is human trafficking?
Human trafficking is a serious human rights violation with global, national, and regional impact. Often called “modern day slavery,” estimates suggest that over 40 million people are exploited globally.
“Human trafficking involves the recruitment, transportation, harbouring and/or exercising control, direction or influence over the movements of a person in order to exploit that person, typically through sexual exploitation or forced labour. It is often described as a modern form of slavery.”
The internationally recognized Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines trafficking as “the recruitment transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”
Image from UNODC
International vs. Domestic Trafficking
International trafficking occurs when a trafficked person crosses an international border for the purposes of exploitation. The immigration status or documentation of a victim of international trafficking is irrelevant to the crime.
Domestic trafficking occurs when a trafficked person remains in the country in which they are exploited. Domestic trafficking can occur to foreign nationals within a country; the term domestic trafficking simply refers to situations in which trafficked persons do not cross international borders.
Image from the Hamilton Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition’s Guide for Supporting Trafficked Persons, 2018
Types of Human Trafficking
There are various types of human trafficking around the world including:
Labour trafficking, forced labour, or labour exploitation
Sex Trafficking or Sexual Exploitation
Domestic Servitude
Forced Criminality
Forced Marriage
Organ Trafficking/Harvesting
In Canada, sex trafficking and labour trafficking are the most common forms of trafficking.
Human Trafficking in Hamilton
Hamilton is not immune to human trafficking. Cases of labour trafficking and sex trafficking have occurred in our city and the surrounding region. For more information about what human trafficking looks like in our region, please see these examples from local news sources.
Some facts and figures
In Canada, according to Statistics Canada:
The vast majority of victims of police-reported human trafficking were women and girls (97%).
About half (45%) of all victims of police-reported human trafficking were between the ages of 18 and 24. Nearly three in ten victims (28%) were under the age of 18, and the remainder (26%) were 25 years of age or older.
Four in five (81%) persons accused of human trafficking since 2009 have been men.
The HAHTC recognizes that statistics on human trafficking are often skewed by the fact that human trafficking is often under-reported. For example, statistics provided by Statistics Canada represent trends as provided by police services and adult criminal courts. We recognize that, like other crimes like sexual assault, human trafficking often goes unreported to law enforcement and that the scope of human trafficking is realistically larger than what statistics and reports suggest.