Last Sunday after the Epiphany

 

There’s a church calendar hanging in each church office, and I have one hanging beside my desk in my home office. These calendars have all the special church celebration days and liturgical seasons listed and keep me on track from Sunday to Sunday. So when I looked at February 19th to see what was designated for this day, the calendar told me three things, it is the Last Sunday of the Epiphany, so the Sunday before we start Lent. It is also Transfiguration Sunday, usually celebrated as such by the Lutherans, but we Anglicans tend to actually celebrate the Transfiguration on August 6th. And something I never noticed before, it said today is Freedom Sunday. That intrigued me. So I went to the Canadian Anglican Church website and discovered that:
“The Church’s observance of this day typically takes place near National Human Trafficking Awareness Day (held annually on February 22). In the Anglican Church of Canada, Freedom Sunday shines light on the connections between human trafficking, labour exploitation, and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and 2SLGBTQI+ persons. Everywhere, people of faith express compassion and solidarity with trafficked peoples through prayer, bible study and worship, and by making commitments to tackle these dehumanizing crimes. "1
Human trafficking is not something I know much about, until this past week I didn’t even realize that it was something our Church observed, so I thought I’d share with you what I’ve learned. Most of this information comes from the Anglican Church of Canada website, along with some other informative details I will share with you.
What is Human Trafficking?
Human trafficking is the recruitment or movement of a person by deception or coercion for the purpose of exploitation. People are bought and sold for sexual exploitation, forced labour, street crime, domestic servitude, or even the sale of organs and human sacrifice.
Human trafficking denies basic human rights to millions of women, children and men globally. It is the world’s fastest growing global crime and one of the largest sources of income for organized crime, since profits are in the billions and risks are low. It is a system based on greed, control, and power that leads to modern slavery. In terms of global trafficking, the trade in human beings ranks third, below only drugs and weapons.
Human trafficking represents a global market in which people are the product and everyone has a price tag—an international conveyor belt of transactions and exchange with sophisticated trade routes and communications. It is a horrendous crime, one so awful that often people instinctively struggle to admit it exists. Often society doesn’t listen, business doesn’t see, and governments don’t talk. The (ones who are) trafficked are often invisible, always powerless, and are put to work.
Everyone dreams of progress in some shape or form, whether it is to be loved, to be seen, to belong, or for a better future for their family. Traffickers often exploit that desire amongst the most vulnerable members of the population. The trafficker creates an intimate point of sale, making promises of progress such as an education, a new start, and future choices. This is the ultimate deception.
Different forms of human trafficking exist. Variants include enforced sex work; child sexual exploitation; enforced labour in dangerous or dirty jobs without pay; bonded labour wherein the “bond” or debt is exploited to ensure the victim is never able to repay, or where threats and abusive force is used to maintain control, as is often the case with migrant workers; involuntary domestic servitude in which victims are held against their will within the personal home of the exploiter through threats and the confiscation of identification documents, in which labour is unpaid and there are often other abuses; forced child labour; and child soldiers.2
Human Trafficking in Canada
Canada is a source country, a transit country, and a destination country for human trafficking. Children, women and men from Canadian communities and from other countries are exploited across the country, particularly in large urban centres. Trafficked persons in Canada are forced to work in the sex industry, in domestic service, or as agricultural labourers, as well as in other sectors such as manufacturing and construction. Numbers of trafficked people in Canada are difficult to establish with current data, however the report of the National Task Force on Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls in Canada (2014) notes that service agencies served more than 2,800 women and girls in a single year who had been trafficked for the sex trade alone.
Trafficked persons in Canada come from a wide variety of backgrounds, however there are certain populations that are particularly vulnerable to being exploited in this way, including:
• Women and girls
• People living in poverty, particularly women and children
• Socially marginalized communities, particularly Indigenous women and children as well as LGBTQ2SI youth, immigrants and migrants without legal status
• Youth in care of child welfare agencies
• Homeless youth
Most trafficked persons in Canada live with extremely limited freedom of movement and often are denied access to identity documents, private communication with friends and family, and money, and many are regularly moved from one location to another. Traffickers maintain domination and control over the people they exploit through physical violence, threats, and coercion. 3
According to a Statistics Canada website I found:
between 2010 and 2020, the highest average annual rates of human trafficking in the provinces were documented in Nova Scotia and Ontario. ... Ontario... represented 39% ... of the Canadian population in 2020 (Statistics Canada 2022), between 2010 and 2020 Ontario accounted for 65% ... of police-reported human trafficking incidents. Studies have shown that traffickers target groups of women and girls who are at particular risk due to factors related to poverty, isolation, precarious housing, substance use, history of violence, childhood maltreatment and mental health issues (Baird et al. 2020; Parliament of Canada 2018). During the recruitment phase, traffickers regularly exploit these vulnerabilities through deception and manipulation, providing victims with the affection, care and security they may otherwise lack (UNODC 2021a). The level of violence and coercion often increase over time, resulting in lasting psychological harm for trafficking victims. (The) vast majority of detected human trafficking victims are women and girls, one in four victims are younger than 18.4
While human trafficking is primarily seen in larger urban centres, Huron County is not immune. In our county, “... 96 per cent of victims are female”5 according to executive director of victim services for Huron County in an 2018 interview with the CBC. “The more common strategy in rural areas to lure in victims is what police call 'Romeo traffickers.' That's in contrast to urban centres, which are more likely to see victims forced into human trafficking or held hostage by their perpetrators. Romeo traffickers are the ones that get (their victims) to fall in love. ... Then they get aspects of leverage, whether it be a compromising photo or a compromising story, to keep these young people doing what they want them to do for fear of exposure." 6
Global Human Trafficking
According to the United Nations Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, the reported number of trafficked persons, traffickers and trafficking flows worldwide is but the tip of the iceberg. Today it is estimated that close to 30 million people worldwide are enslaved into forced labour and sexual exploitation. Actual numbers victimized by this basest of crimes is unknown, but the number of victims is increasing, especially among girls under 18 years and younger children. Most are recruited or moved for sexual exploitation and domestic servitude. The number of adult victims for enforced labour is also increasing. Human trafficking happens everywhere but most victims are trafficked close to home, ... often by other citizens of that country. Among regions of the world, trafficking for sexual exploitation is highest in Europe and Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East and the Americas. Trafficking for forced labour and slavery like servitude prevails in East Asia, South Asia and Pacific. 7
The Anglican Church of Canada is working to end human trafficking and modern slavery in Canada and globally in partnership with faith-based, civil society, and government partners in Canada, and with the Anglican Communion and global ecumenical organizations.
Canadian Anglican involvement locally (and in other national church groups) is currently not well known within the Church. Most church members are not aware of the extent or nature of human trafficking and modern slavery in our neighbourhoods, towns and cities (or of) Ministries of local parishes with and for vulnerable and trafficked peoples (and efforts in place to stop this terrible harm.) More than 60 Anglican leaders are working in local parishes and communities to raise awareness about human trafficking and modern slavery. These church members come from almost every diocese from coast to coast to coast. Their ministry is informed by local realities and needs, and by the recent General Synod 2019 Resolution A204 Human Trafficking and Modern slavery. 8
Individuals and groups within the Anglican Church of Canada have contributed to many educational and awareness initiatives, and a full list can be found on the Anglican Church of Canada website. One that intrigued me was a learning kit created by the Canadian Council of Churches called: Human Trafficking in Canada: A Leadership and Learning Kit for Churches. We have a priest in our deanery who has worked with women in the sex trade, and also has done some education on human trafficking issues. I know he would welcome any interest and desire to help. If anyone is interested in learning more, or wanting to become involved in some way, do please discuss it with me, and we’ll see how we can move forward.
6. Ibid