By Canada. Public Safety Canada

Sex trafficking is highly gendered and disproportionately affects women and girls. Statistics Canada reported that 96% of detected victims of human trafficking between 2011 and 2021 were women, and that 45% of all detected victims were aged 18 to 24 and 24% under the age of 18. Although exact numbers are unknown, Indigenous and non-Indigenous women and girls are disproportionately represented among sex trafficking victims, as reported in the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Other populations at higher risk of being trafficked or targeted by human traffickers for sex trafficking include: •Youth in or who had been in the child welfare system; •2SLGBTQl+ persons, especially transgender men and women and gender non-conforming individuals; •Migrants; and •People experiencing social or economic marginalization. With regards to labour trafficking, the gender and age of victims differs across Canadian regions and economic sectors, however, the data is limited.

[Ottawa] : Public Safety Canada = Sécurité publique Canada, January 2023. 35p.

By Amanda Noble, Isaac Coplan, Jaime Neal, Amanda Suleiman, Susan McIntyre

Exiting sex trafficking can be a long and arduous process, with survivors having many needs that must be addressed before, during and after exiting. Often this process takes many attempts. To date, very little work has been done to document the process survivors must undergo in order to successfully escape from sex trafficking or to document their specific needs while attempting to do so. The following pages detail the findings of a national research project conducted in eight Canadian cities: Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Niagara Falls, Thunder Bay, Montreal, Halifax, and St. John’s. Through a combination of focus groups and interviews, we spoke with 201 stakeholders from 147 organizations, including service providers, healthcare professionals, police, and most importantly, 50 survivors of sex trafficking. This research project sought to answer five key questions related to exiting the sex industry: What is the process of exiting sexual exploitation? What are the major barriers to escaping sex trafficking? What basic, instrumental, and psychological needs do survivors have when exiting sex trafficking? At what point in the journey are certain needs more pressing?….. This report aims to provide guidance to service providers (including frontline agencies, health care providers, first responders and child protection agencies) so that they can better understand the unique and complex needs of those who have survived sex trafficking.

Toronto: Covenant House & The Hindsight Group. 2020. 84p.

Edited by Nancy Nicol, Adrian Jjuuko, Richard Lusimbo, Nick J. Mulé, Susan Ursel, Amar Wahab and Phyllis Waugh  

Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope is an outcome of a five-year international collaboration among partners that share a common legacy of British colonial laws that criminalise same-sex intimacy and gender identity/expression. The project sought to facilitate learning from each other and to create outcomes that would advance knowledge and social justice. The project was unique, combining research and writing with participatory documentary filmmaking. This visionary politics infuses the pages of the anthology. The chapters are bursting with invaluable first hand insights from leading activists at the forefront of some of the most fiercely fought battlegrounds of contemporary sexual politics in India, the Caribbean and Africa. As well, authors from Canada, Botswana and Kenya examine key turning points in the advancement of SOGI issues at the United Nations, and provide critical insights on LGBT asylum in Canada. Authors also speak to a need to reorient and decolonise queer studies, and turn a critical gaze northwards from the Global South. It is a book for activists and academics in a range of disciplines from postcolonial and sexualities studies to filmmaking, as well as for policy-makers and practitioners committed to envisioning, and working for, a better future.

London: University of London Press, 2018. 462p.

By Hayli Millar, and Tamara O’Doherty

The Palermo Protocol & Canada Ten Years On: The Evolution and Human Rights Impacts of Anti-Trafficking Laws in Canada is a comprehensive study of Canada’s use of anti-trafficking legislation evaluating the stated intentions and actual effects of national anti-human trafficking laws, in the more than ten years since Canada ratified the international treaty. Our primary goals were to contribute to knowledge uptake of marginalized groups and to foster increased communication between sectors working on similar issues, with the fundamental purpose of improving access to justice for im/migrant sex workers.

Vancouver, Canada: International Centre for Criminal Law Reform - ICCLR, 2015. 115p.