Why so few prosecutions?
http://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/42474/ubc_2012_fall_ferguson_...
Abstract
This study investigated the anomaly between the claims that international human trafficking is wide spread in Canada versus the paucity of international trafficking prosecutions that have been achieved in this country following almost a decade of anti-trafficking enforcement. It relied upon a research approach that was anchored by Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘field’ theory in order to unite the disparate issues that were examined in this project into a cohesive explanation for why there have been so few international human trafficking prosecutions in Canada. This thesis examines how moral reform and radical feminism have come to dominate the trafficking discourse and how that dominance has resulted in a general understanding of the crime where the victims are vulnerable foreign women and children trafficked for the sex trade.
The study traces the interaction that has taken place between the international anti-trafficking social movement and the Canadian government in order to demonstrate the influence that this social construction of international trafficking has had upon the government’s anti-trafficking policy, law and enforcement strategies. Through an analysis of government documents, statistical enforcement results, study research interviews, and alternative explanations that have been offered to account for the lack of international trafficking prosecutions, this thesis establishes that the most plausible explanation for so few international trafficking prosecutions in Canada is that the international trafficking of foreign women and girls into Canada for prostitution is not as systemic in this country as many have claimed.
The examination of the lone international trafficking prosecution reveals that the victim formation which underpins the understanding of international trafficking can appreciably affect prosecutions because it dismisses from consideration as victims those persons who exist beyond the parameters of the accepted international human trafficking victim indicia.
hey benjamin...your own school questions your assertions....what say you?
macdonald-laurier...consider yourselves on notice....
Oh, i've seen some charges: a West Vancouver couple charged in regards to their maid/nanny. A construction business employer charged in regards to several workers kept isolated, and only transported for work. etc
I posted elsewhere about using sensationalism in reports, articles and discussions about trafficking, sex work, and so on ,and how prevalent it is used in order to manipulate the general public in order to get them to believe some things that are simply untrue.
The reason would be that usually an investigation happens after a complaint, if no one complains there is no investigation and consequently no charges. A common misconception is that trafficking is some sort of slave trade, but in the North American context the trafficked persons are usually complicit in the trafficking themselves. They come here for economic reasons, and do so illegally, and criminals facilitate that (for a fat fee of course). That is what the trafficking is, but it is really just illegal workers coming in from other countries.
In most cases when they are found they simply get deported, and they have no incentive to make a complaint about the people who helped them get here and set them up in whatever work they were doing. That would be the reason there are so few trafficking cases. No complaints, no investigations, no convictions (or very few). It is still a significant problem, but it is just not of the nature that is commonly portrayed in the media and by activisits.
There's lots of international sex trafficking, at least in Vancouver. I don't know if it's more or less than legislators think, but it's there. The problem with prosecution under the anti-trafficking laws is the same as the problem with prosecution under any of the other laws: *everyone* - the victims, the traffickers, and the johns - obstruct efforts to bring justice.
Which underscores my opinion that the only solution to coerced or exploitive sex work is a change to the women-hating rape culture we live under. No legislation can overcome the exploitation of women, and such legislation creates a chilling effect for truly voluntary sex work. As long as there are men who either want or are willing to tolerate being serviced by not-fully-consenting women (whether for money or not), trafficking and other forms of coercion will flourish.
i agree that legislation will do nothing to combat sex trafficking, i do not agree that there is "lots" of international sex trafficking in vancouver. we work closely with org's who provide supports to the south asian migrant sex working population here and that is not what we are hearing at all.
migrant workers needs rights, not arrest and deportation. not raid and rescue either.
http://swanvancouver.ca/
That's called smuggling, not trafficking.
Exactly.
This is how the UN defines trafficking:
I disagree with you. Contrary to what some people claim, I don't think there is 'lots of international sex trafficking' in Vancouver. (To make sure we're talking about the same thing, I'm using the UN definition of trafficking btw.) How do you come to that conclusion? Why would someone who thinks of herself as a victim who is being coerced want to 'obstruct efforts to bring justice'?
Honestly, I highly doubt there are a whole lot of men who knowingly 'tolerate being serviced by not-fully-consenting women' (for money)? Unlike what abolitionists believe (that men who pay for sex are all rapists who are actually paying to be able to rape and abuse them), most men who pay for sex aren't interested in sex with someone who clearly doesn't want to be there. (Often that's what they're already getting at home!) Yes, those men exist. But there are men like that who haven't ever paid for sex. It's not the money part that attracts dangerous men, but the likelihood that they can get away with it because of the way sex workers are dehumanized and stigmatized and many still perpetuate the beliefs that some lives are worth less than others.
Another thing I think is important to note is that whenever law enforcement has power to police prostitution (ie wherever prostitution is criminalized in one form or another), it is not from clients that sex workers face the most violence (sexual, physical, robbery) but rather from police. Criminalizing is giving the police power over sex workers. And while I'm sure most individual officers do not abuse of this power (aside from using it arbitrarily), there are always some who inevitably do.
cco, you made me lol.
There has been an attempt by abolitionists to conflate human trafficking with sex work. The two things are not the same. They just want you to think it is the same. In order to be trafficked you have to actually move from one place to another, but they are using it synonomously with someone who is coerced, forced, confined and compelled to work under threats. According to laws we have, that is against the law and there are charges about it specific to sex work. If, in addition, their exploiters also move them from one city to another, or one country to another, remember it is still against their will and they are still forced, then it is trafficking. This again is a separate criminal charge. And trafficking as a charge can also be laid against someone who aids a willing migrant sex worker to come to the country to work, usually for higher rates than she would get at home.
Migrant sex work is a huge phenonmenon. It accounts for why there are so many foreign born workers in the Netherlands and Germany, which makes sense since it is legal there, but not in other countries. It accounts for a surge in migrant sex work movement out of Sweden and into Finland, for the same reasons.
Trafficked is not the same thing as coercian. Sex work is not the same thing as sex trafficking. And the real research, and even police reports support the facts that the numbers are not anywhere near the ones sensationalistically reported by the media and abolitionists. They can't be, because anti sex work groups define all sex workers as 'trafficked' in order to get those number higher. If they don't convince everyone that all sex workers are forced, or if no force can be located, then they are clearly delusional if they say they are willing.
SWAN works almost exclusively with massage parlours that hire foreign born, i.e. asian women. In an interview with GAATW, they have explicitly stated that they have never enountered anyone trafficked
http://www.gaatw.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=737:swan-outreach-programs-for-migrant-sex-workers-&catid=95:member-profile&Itemid=67
I see. I'm expressing my personal opinion based only upon my personal experience of clients and fellow SPs. I think your question about why a victim would obstruct justice is extremely naive. And my personal experience is that most pooners will ignore or rationalise evidence that their SP isn't 100% willing. IMO this is not a symptom of prostitution being evil, rather it is a symptom of the patriarchy.
In my own experience, there are few clients who will willingly bow out of a session for any reason that doesn't have to do with their own pleasure or interest, regardless of whether or not they are able to get their money back. This isn't because they are bad people, it is because of the way prostitution has been framed for them.
Fortunate, that's not the way I understand it:
But that definition does include illegal foreign workers, since the workers could reasonably be expected to believe that their personal safety and ability to work would be endangered if they refused to comply with whatever the trafficker demanded. They would have no protection since if they complained to the police, they would face arrest and deportation themselves. Consequently they would automatically be considered as exploited.
The law does not require an actual threat, or even the fear of a threat, all that it requires is that one might reasonably believe that a threat exists as a consequence of the circumstances. This would be the case in pretty much every situation where an illegal worker entered the country with the assistance of a third party.
But that definition does include illegal foreign workers, since the workers could reasonably be expected to believe that their personal safety and ability to work would be endangered if they refused to comply with whatever the trafficker demanded. They would have no protection since if they complained to the police, they would face arrest and deportation themselves. Consequently they would automatically be considered as exploited.
The law does not require an actual threat, or even the fear of a threat, all that it requires is that one might reasonably believe that a threat exists as a consequence of the circumstances. This would be the case in pretty much every situation where an illegal worker entered the country with the assistance of a third party.
Seatree, smuggling is a crime against the state. It involves payment to smugglers to help cross borders. Human trafficking is a crime against the person. It involves explotation. Of course, smuggler's fee could be perceived as exploitative but that's an other story.
Smugglers want one thing: get paid. They don't care how the smuggled people pay their due. It can be prostitution, illegal work or anything else. Smuggled people rarely pay entirely before border crossing. So, of course, smugglers tend to keep an eye on the smmugled people until they pay their due because they can't resort to legal means. Smuggled people "might reasonably believe that a threat exists as a consequence of the circumstances". But that remains a case of smuggling unless the smuggler engages in exploitation.
Exactly. And human trafficking NGOs want people to recognize the difference between consensual and non consensual situations. They are concerned with non consensual, and recognize that there is a difference between voluntary migration for work, even if that means help is necessary to do it, and even if it is necessary to be working with that facilitator, for lack of a better word. is it exploitive? In many cases yes but that is due to a choice to have lower rates and round the clock bookings, in order to get as much $$ as possible before or unless they get caught working without proper work visa and deported. Hard work this way, but it is still consensual. They are moving out of a place where demand has decreased, often due to age, and going to a place where demand is increased (often due to pricing)
We try to judge them by North American standards, which is why we fail. You can say, you know you could charge double that and people would still come, and they will say, whatever, mind your business, and carry on what they are doing. You can't tell someone who used to be making 50 bucks a night now making 500 a day that they are doing something wrong, or being exploited by charging low rates.
I don't believe that Canadian law makes that distinction.
Certainly when it comes to sex workers trafficked in from other countries, they are not simply being "smuggled". They are brought to specific places where they are employed. They don't arrive in Canada with a resume and do the rounds of the local massage parlours and micros all on their own initiative, it is all arranged beforehand and overseen by organized crime in most cases. These woman either speak english poorly or not at all, usually have little or no education and are from a peasant background, and we are supposed to believe that they have the motivation and drive to go to a strange foreign country and do all that all on their own?
They know that they are working in a semi-legal highly stigmatized profession, and they know they will be deported at the drop of a hat if the authorities find them. And they certainly have a pretty good idea of the temprement of the people who brought them over. They are extremely vulnerable, and an implied threat is allways there. That does not mean they were forced to come here, it is pretty clear that their personal motivation is money. Relative to where they come from (and where they usually go back to after making some money) the money they make is massive, even if the bulk of it is taken by other people. With all those factors involved it is pretty unlikely that they are going to make a complaint, and without those complaints there will be few investigations and even fewer convictions.
I don't believe that Canadian law makes that distinction.
Certainly when it comes to sex workers trafficked in from other countries, they are not simply being "smuggled". They are brought to specific places where they are employed. They don't arrive in Canada with a resume and do the rounds of the local massage parlours and micros all on their own initiative, it is all arranged beforehand and overseen by organized crime in most cases. These woman either speak english poorly or not at all, usually have little or no education and are from a peasant background, and we are supposed to believe that they have the motivation and drive to go to a strange foreign country and do all that all on their own?
They know that they are working in a semi-legal highly stigmatized profession, and they know they will be deported at the drop of a hat if the authorities find them. And they certainly have a pretty good idea of the temprement of the people who brought them over. They are extremely vulnerable, and an implied threat is allways there. That does not mean they were forced to come here, it is pretty clear that their personal motivation is money. Relative to where they come from (and where they usually go back to after making some money) the money they make is massive, even if the bulk of it is taken by other people. With all those factors involved it is pretty unlikely that they are going to make a complaint, and without those complaints there will be few investigations and even fewer convictions.
seatree, your assumptions about migrant sex workers are really off the mark. all the research and outreach that has been done says that the things you are saying about them are false.
organized crime is a broad term used to describe anyone who runs a sex industry business and in many cases, the workers who come here DO make the rounds at the massage parlours looking for work. i receive calls from people looking to work with me.
you state they are uneducated, speak no english, have all their money taken and don't know better as they are peasants....
these types of assumptions infantalize migrant workers and completely skew the issues they are facing.
they are for the most part not forced and are trying to build a better life for themselves and their families back home as many temporary foreign workers do.
please read the GAATW web site or SWAN and listen to what migrant workers themselves say about the issues they face before entering into a discussion based on baised rhetoric promoted by rescue agencies across the globe.
with all the information emerging about the lies told by the orgs in order to make money on the backs of these people, io would hope that enlightened babblers would take the time to understand that these kinds of myths about migrant workers are harming them.
You make a lot of assumptions.
1 Of course they have the motivation, just as they have the motivation to move to cities in order to work in factories for much lower pay then prostitution and very harsh working conditions.
2 You infantilize people with low “education”, with no foreign language skills and of peasant traditions. First of all, they know about their own existence and from their own experience. And many think they get low rewards for the effort they put as peasants. I’m all for the preservation of peasant communities, but you just can’t forbid people to try to improve their conditions.
3 Smuggling arrangements can vary considerably, depending on the country of origin, the country of destination and structure present at arrival. Some have precise destined job before even leaving, some have communities and relatives waiting for them.
Convictions for smuggling of course. And believe me, the CBSA takes those cases seriously.
Here’s an explanation of the difference: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/ht-tp/q-a-trafficking-traite-eng.htm#q1
“In some cases, a person who has agreed to be smuggled into a country becomes a trafficking victim at the hands of the smuggler.”
Those would be fall under 118. (1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Here is the summary of convictions between 2005 and 2012 :
Human Trafficking Offences in Canada
Although the extent of human trafficking in Canada is difficult to determine, the following available statistics, as of April 2012, provide some context:
3 charges have been laid under section 118 of IRPA, which prohibits trafficking into Canada. While no convictions under that section have been registered, accused persons have been convicted under related IRPA provisions.
http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/ntnl-ctn-pln-cmbt/index-...