Earlier this month, UBC law professor Benjamin Perrin met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper as well as Attorney General and Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson to make the case for a national action plan to combat human trafficking in Canada.
The national action plan proposed by Perrin and MP Joy Smith includes the following key components:
- Prosecute Traffickers: Identify, disrupt and prosecute human trafficking operations with integrated law enforcement Human Trafficking Task Forces to target the most prolific and violent criminal organizations and networks.
- Protect Victims: Ensure victims of human trafficking can access needed governmental and non-governmental services wherever they are identified in Canada.
- Prevent the Crime: Prevention efforts including outreach and education to ensure that the most vulnerable are resistant to tactics of traffickers; ensure temporary foreign workers who are victims benefit from “whistleblower” protection with alternative employment and recovery of unpaid wages.
- Confront Demand: adopt the Nordic model of prostitution to criminalize the purchase of sex acts, but not those being sold who are instead offered support to exit exploitation; vigorously enforce Canada’s extraterritorial child sex crime offences and prevent convicted child sex offenders from freely travelling abroad.
- Cooperation: Work collaboratively with the provinces, law enforcement, Aboriginal leaders, non-governmental organizations and survivors to implement this plan to end human trafficking in Canada.
For more information, visit http://www.law.ubc.ca/news/2010/nov/11_17_10_perrin.html