Five cities, including London, driving human trafficking in Canada: Report

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London ranks among five metro areas in Canada that together account for nearly half of all human trafficking reports in the last decade, a new snapshot of the crime shows.

There were 570 cases of human trafficking reported to police in Canada last year, down slightly from 597 in 2022, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday.

Despite the slight decrease in the latest human trafficking report, cases have been on the rise for the past decade, with more than four-fifths recorded in large urban areas, the report said.

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Statistics Canada singled out five cities for contributing 45 per cent of all human trafficking cases: Toronto (20 per cent), Ottawa (nine per cent), Halifax (six per cent), Montreal (six per cent) and London (four per cent).

Those five cities are located on two of the top human trafficking corridors in the country: Highway 401 and the Trans-Canada Highway, said Julia Drydyk, executive director of the Centre to End Human Trafficking.

“We know that these corridors are being systematically used by traffickers for a few reasons,” Drydyk said.  “One is to isolate the victims and keep them dependent on their trafficker, to keep them removed from their family, friends and support networks. It’s also to avoid law enforcement detection and to capitalize on those various commercial sex industry markets in those major urban centres.”

Human trafficking advocates have long labelled London “a hotbed” for the crime, citing its location between Toronto and the United States border along the 401, where sex-trafficking victims are often forced to work out of hotels and motels.

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“It’s called the circuit,” said Megan Walker, former head of the London Abused Women’s Centre. “It is a horrific situation.”

Walker echoed a conclusion from the authors of the Statistics Canada report that the numbers only provide a “partial  picture” of human trafficking because the hidden and underreported nature of the crime.

“Because, like sexual assault, it’s all based on reporting,” Walker said. “Most of these women will never go to a police officer.”

Walker said she still receives up to five calls a week from abused girls and women seeking help, some of them victims of human trafficking. She described meeting with one woman who was trafficked in Niagara Falls and ended up in a farm house, where she was hung upside down from the ceiling and whipped.

“She was treated like a dog, so she was in a dog cage for a while,” Walker said.

Human trafficking is usually divided into two types – sex trafficking and labour trafficking – and is defined as the exploitation of people through force, fraud or coercion.

The Statistics Canada report didn’t provide a breakdown between the types of trafficking, but sex trafficking is much more prevalent in Canada.

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Females made up 93 per cent of the 3,558 human trafficking victims in the past decade, while males make up 83 per cent of the 2,697 alleged perpetrators, the report says. Most of the victims, 93 per cent, knew their traffickers.

Police officers and human trafficking advocates have touted education and awareness as key to combating the crime. Progress has been made on that front in recent years as staff at airports, hotels and even taxi drivers have undergone training to spot the warning signs of human trafficking.  Survivors have shared their stories with the media and even at high schools, bringing greater awareness to the issue.

Dark Highway, a documentary about human trafficking along the 401, was screened last weekend at the Forest City Film Festival followed by a panel discussion with director AJ Edmonds and London police Chief Thai Truong.

“Hearing directly from survivors was a stark reminder of the importance of raising awareness and understanding the real impact of this hidden crime,” Truong wrote on social media. “As a community, we must continue to support and protect those affected while working to prevent further victimization.”

Drydyk warned human trafficking isn’t just a big-city problem, citing data from her organization’s 24-hour hotline at 1-833-900-1010 that connects victims and survivors with services.

“We get calls from basically every community across Canada, from the largest urban centres to the smallest rural hamlets,” she said.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

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