Province creates human trafficking task force
By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The provincial government has created a new task force focused on addressing human trafficking.
The task force will work to provide guidance and recommendations on how to best implement the government’s nine-point action plan to combat human trafficking, according to a press release.
“The Human Trafficking Task Force will guide us on the best way to protect Albertans who are most at risk of human trafficking,” said Leela Sharon Aheer, Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women and Chestermere-Strathmore MLA, in a statement. “Together, we will coordinate a response across government and community so we can combat this insidious crime.”
The task force, composed of seven members, is led by Paul Brandt, a country music artist who founded #NotInMyCity, a movement “raising awareness and taking collective action to prevent and end sexual exploitation and trafficking of children and youth.” Brandt received the 2019 Slaight Music Humanitarian Award by the Canadian Country Music Association in 2019 for his work.
Also on the panel is Siksika Health Service CEO Tyler White, who was a member of the provincial child intervention panel and the provincial mental health review.
As it is defined under the criminal code, trafficking involves the recruiting, transporting, transferring, receiving, holding, concealing or harbouring a person, or exercising control, direction or influence over the movements of a person, for the purposes of exploiting them or facilitating their exploitation. Trafficking is often confused with smuggling, which involves for-profit, trans-national migration with the individual’s consent.
Human trafficking charges have been laid in rural communities and urban centres, according to ACT Alberta, a non-profit focused on the crime and its victims. People are typically trafficked for labour and/or sexual exploitation, and traffickers may be intimate partners, employers, recruiters, family members or organized crime groups, according to the organization.
Canadian police services reported 340 incidents of human trafficking where it was the most serious violation in 2016, the most recent year for which this data is available, according to a report by Statistics Canada. Between 2009 and 2016, there were a total of 1,220 police-reported incidents of human trafficking where it was the most serious violation, according to the report.
Across the nation, there were 31, 26 and 23 human trafficking charges in 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively, for police-reported organized crime, as reported by Statistics Canada. These figures include charges under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.