Human Trafficking

This September, we will see a back to school season different from any before. For many students, after enduring online learning for over a year, they will return to classrooms, to playgrounds, and to spending time with new teachers and friends. 

Recently I was asked “What caused you to care about the issue of human trafficking?”. It took me a second to respond. I heard about human trafficking for the first time when I was in the 9th grade. A woman came in and told us about what human trafficking is, how anyone could become a victim to it, the grooming tactics and how it was happening in places all around us. She told us it happens in areas near our homes and started listing off a bunch of popular places along with internet platforms.

Today is a momentous day in Canadian history. It is our first National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. As the new Interim Executive Director for Restorations Second Stage Homes I am honoured to share a little bit about myself and my story with you here.

When people hear about the work I do with survivors, they often want to share with me the latest story they have heard about trafficking. As they share details, it could be about a case or a news story I hadn’t yet heard, and yet elements of it - the targeting, recruiting, grooming or conditioning, and exploitation of victims - tend to follow similar patterns. Despite this, trafficking can look vastly different and take on different forms.

The Exodus Road is a nonprofit dedicated to strategically fighting human trafficking across the globe. The organization intervenes in human trafficking situations by empowering nationals around the world to gather evidence and facilitate rescue missions with local police to free enslaved people. 

Since 2011, I’ve been speaking and raising awareness about issues relating to human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Over the years, my presentation style changes and evolves to work to my strengths and address emerging issues. One of the challenges I have speaking to audiences of strangers is not knowing how much they might already know about the issue, so I tend to start with general facts and information and go from there. Last year, I adapted my presentation and centered my content around myths about human trafficking.

Like many around the globe, my ministry, my family, and I have had to make changes to our way of life in light of COVID-19. This spring, Restorations had been looking forward to completing the renovations of our home where we hope to launch our residential program for survivors of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation later this year. COVID-19 has brought disappointments – like turning away a large group of volunteers from local CRC churches who had been eagerly waiting to help paint the house.

I never intended to work as a psychotherapist.  When I first went off to ‘pursue’ a career I chose being a school teacher.   I even taught Grade 6 for two years. Then as life would have it, I decided to take a risk and covered a maternity leave teaching GED (high school equivalency) to moms in the Jane/Finch area of Toronto.  I fell in love with the vulnerable women that I was working with.

Across the globe populations are being told to stay home, to isolate from their neighbors, to not travel or even go into work.   Drastic measures taken to safeguard our neighbors by creating borders between us to stop a virus that has no borders.  And as has been pointed out, these measures are a luxury for many.  Not all have anywhere to go to isolate from others. Not all have running water to repeatedly wash hands or internet connections to maintain work productivity.

Lent comes to us providentially to reawaken us, to shake us from our lethargy.  - Pope Francis