Prime Minister Trudeau: Establish a national hotline to help human trafficking victims
- by: Covenant House Toronto
- recipient: Prime Minster Trudeau
Right now, unsuspecting young women and girls are being sold for sex by predators who control them through violence, drugs and intimidation. While homeless youth are at high risk, victims can be just like any girl you know.
Victims may be lured from local malls, schoolyards or online by traffickers often posing as potential boyfriends. These predators look for vulnerabilities to deceive and lure girls and make promises they will never keep. Once ensnared, the trafficker subjects their victims to the horrors of forced prostitution for the trafficker's own personal profit.
While the federal government has taken steps to combat trafficking, Covenant House Toronto and The Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking are urging the Prime Minister to take a leadership role in establishing a vital resource that is accessible and available for all victims across Canada to obtain help and provide valuable information.
Canada is the only country in North America that currently lacks a national hotline for victims of human trafficking. We can't let this gap in services continue any longer.
Approximately 70 percent of all Canadian cases involve domestic sex trafficking. This is a growing public issue and largely a domestic crime. Nearly 90% of victims are female and as young as 13 years old. Research shows that 42% of victims were trafficked before the age of 18 years (Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking, 2010).
Covenant House Toronto is among the few agencies in Canada offering comprehensive services to sexually exploited and trafficked victims to help them reclaim their lives. Last year alone, the agency saw a 40 percent increase in these cases and believe a hotline is needed more than ever.
Victims of human trafficking need the federal government to establish a Canada-wide hotline in partnership with community agencies that provide services and law enforcement to better combat this heinous national crime. Will you help be a voice for victims by taking action today?
Please sign the petition to urge Prime Minister Trudeau to help human trafficking victims by establishing a national hotline immediately.
Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,
Victims of human trafficking need your government to help establish a Canada-wide hotline in partnership with community agencies that provide services and law enforcement to better combat this heinous national crime.
Right now, unsuspecting young women and girls are being sold for sex by predators who control them through violence, drugs and intimidation.
Covenant House Toronto is among the few agencies in Canada offering comprehensive services to sexually exploited and trafficked victims to help them reclaim their lives. Last year alone, we saw a 40 percent increase in these cases and believe a hotline is needed more than ever.
Canada is the only country in North America that currently lacks a national hotline for victims of human trafficking.
While the federal government has taken steps to combat trafficking, Covenant House Toronto and The Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking are urging you to take a leadership role in establishing a vital resource that is accessible and available for all victims across Canada to obtain help and provide valuable information.
Establishing a national toll-free hotline/textline in Canada through a partnership between your government, service agencies and police would:
- Provide immediate 24/7 support to trafficked victims and families, and connect them to service referrals using a national network of agencies.
- Allow police and the government to target anti-human trafficking efforts and resources.
- Expand security in Canada by serving as the go-to tip-line and general resource for all Canadians, while raising the profile of trafficking through data analysis and information sharing.
A national hotline would partner with existing local call centres and further expand their reach. The coordinated effort would result in a stronger capacity to serve victims and share resources.
Information gathered through the hotline would help identify strategies for collaborative efforts to fight trafficking, such as better targeting criminal rings that often operate between provinces. It would also inform policy reform at the national, provincial and municipal levels.
There is currently no national data collection mechanism in Canada to capture comparable statistics on human trafficking, nor are individual police services required to report incidents to a centralized agency. A national hotline would help put in place this critical process and make this valuable information available.
A tested model has been operating in the United States for almost a decade and has recently been implemented in both Mexico and the United Kingdom. This model has provided one of the largest data bases on human trafficking globally and has identified more than 50,000 victims to date.
Important consultations to design and implement Canada’s first human trafficking hotline are already taking place among advocacy and services partners, but your government’s involvement is essential. We all need to do more to end this human rights abuse of our most vulnerable.
[Your comments here]
Yours sincerely,
[Your name]
By signing, you accept Care2's Terms of Service.
You can unsub at any time here.
Having problems signing this? Let us know.