Statement from MPP Laurie Scott on World Day Against Trafficking In Persons
Ontario PC Critic for Women’s Issues, MPP Laurie Scott, issued the following statement in recognition of World Day Against Trafficking in Persons:
“July 30th marks World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. Designated by the UN in 2013, it is a day to raise public awareness of the plight of human trafficking victims and promote the rights of everyone to live free from this form of modern day slavery.
While we all have a role to play in combatting human trafficking around the globe, our priority as Ontarians should be to eradicate this heinous crime in our very own communities. This not-so-underground criminal practice of courting, capturing, and entrapping our vulnerable children, some as young as 11, through online and social relationships, happens right here: under our noses, in our neighbourhoods, communities and towns. In Canada, 90 per cent of victims are Canadian-born and Ontario is home to 65 per cent of the country’s human trafficking cases.
That is why I introduced Bill 158, Saving the Girl Next Door Act, 2016. The bill would allow the courts to issue a protective order for victims over the age of 15 against a trafficker for a minimum of three years, allow survivors to sue a trafficker as a form of restitution, and expand the provincial sex offender registry to include human trafficking as a sex offence.
In its 2016 annual report on Trafficking in Persons, the U.S. State Department singled out Ontario for its lack of child protection legislation for youth over the age of 15. Changes to the law are urgently needed in Ontario to protect our youth because as one survivor told me, ‘No sixteen year old consents to being a prostitute.’ Every single day of inaction represents another soul lost and another innocent victim left behind to be brutalized by predators.
Just as importantly, resources are needed to create a multi-jurisdictional and multi-disciplinary task force just as we currently have to combat internet child exploitation.
Let us use World Day Against Trafficking in Persons to shine the light of justice on the dark web where sex traffickers do business. We must never relent in our fight to save the girl next door.”