The Mary Ward Centre and the Toronto Counter Human Trafficking Network (TCHTN) are urging the federal government to renew and refine its National Strategy To Combat Human Trafficking after the five-year whole-of-government mandate concluded in May. 

The Mary Ward Centre, a ministry of the Loretto Sisters, was fist off the mark when Eva Rodriguez-Diaz, migration, refugee and human trafficking manager, director Audrey Ferrer and advocacy manager Sarah Rudolph submitted their letter to Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc on April 30. The TCHTN sent its letter late last month.

In its letter to LeBlanc, the Mary Ward Centre trio endorsed several reforms suggested by Tomoya Obacata, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, following his visit to Canada last September.

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Specifically, they want to see the government adopt Obacata’s recommendations calling for improved inspection protocols for private companies hiring temporary foreign workers, providing open work permits to workers to minimize the risk of victimization and arming the workers with necessary human rights and legal information to protect them.

“Fifty-eight per cent of the workers from Latin America are from Mexico. These are people who don’t speak English and are finding English contacts,” said Eva Rodiguez-Diaz. “They do not know their rights and if they are able to complain about the difficult situation happening to them.”

Seventy per cent of all the 70,267 temporary foreign workers operating in the agricultural sector in 2023 hailed from Latin America, including 41 per cent from Mexico.

In its open letter addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and many of his cabinet ministers, the TCHTN stated that the plan needs to be resumed “given the prevalence of trafficking in not just the city centres but across the country.” 

The coalition added that a resumption is “especially critical when it comes to preventative strategies to mitigate risks of labour and sexual exploitation resulting from Canada’s upcoming financial commitments, such as the 2026 FIFA World Cup taking place in Toronto and Vancouver.”

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Later this summer, Public Safety Canada is expected to unveil a report analyzing the impact of the national strategy. The action items included in the government’s approach were providing funding to community-led survivor empowerment programs, launching pilot projects to support at-risk youth, establishing a national case-management standard, strengthening international anti-trafficking dialogue and arming law enforcement and prosecutors with training to enhance their consistency with securing convictions.

 The TCHTN will examine if and how this grand design produced positive outcomes and whether future funding opportunities for anti-trafficking community organizations are identified. 

Each TCHTN affiliate seeks to be involved in shaping the next national strategy. Rodríguez-Diaz said the federalgovernment should launch a federal inquiry to investigate the reality of labour exploitation in Canada. Labour trafficking, often called modern-day slavery, is an individual being compelled to perform labour and services through force, fraud or coercion.

“Many people in Canada are working legal jobs with legal companies but are working under illegal conditions,” said Rodríguez-Diaz. “This is present in farms, the hospitality industry, construction, small businesses and people taking care of children or the elderly in individual families. The government needs to recognize it is happening here and that it is a social (issue) and a problem against human rights.”

How workers are exploited include being required to engage in dangerous tasks, payment of their wages being postponed, employers entrapping them into debt, risk of physical violence and their movement outside of working hours is controlled or restricted. 

While the issue of labour trafficking has received increased attention in recent years, it is safe to hypothesize that a renewed national strategy will focus on curbing sexual exploitation. This form represents 69 per cent of trafficking cases in Canada, according to The Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, a TCHTN member.  

The TCHTN advised the government to assemble an advisory group with survivors of all forms of trafficking.

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“Survivors must be meaningfully engaged and consulted on an ongoing basis at every stage of the work,” stated the TCHTN. “Consultations must always take into account each survivor’s need for safety and privacy and should be approached with a trauma- and violence-informed lens. Survivor input and recommendations are invaluable and must be treated with the same regard and respect as other experts in the anti-trafficking space. They are, in fact, the real experts.”

Other members of the TCHTN include Aura Freedom International, the FCJ Refugee Centre, OneChild, the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture and The I Do! Project.