A joint initiative by several police units across Ontario to crack down on human trafficking resulted in more than 60 victims being rescued in the past 14 months.
The Ontario Provincial Police and 20 regional, municipal and Indigenous police services are members of the Human Trafficking Intelligence-led Joint Forces Strategy (IJFS), launched and funded by the provincial government in December, 2021, to address sex and labour trafficking cases that cross multiple jurisdictions.
The group released statistics Wednesday, also marking Human Trafficking Awareness Day in the province, pointing to 65 joint investigations and 239 charges laid against 28 people, including 72 human-trafficking charges. Victims ranged in age from 12 to 47 and were mostly women and girls. In Ontario, the average age of recruitment into sex trafficking is 13 and more than 70 per cent of victims are under the age of 25.
The Ontario government released a plan in 2020 to spend $307-million over five years on an anti-human-trafficking strategy to combat the growing issue of child sexual exploitation in the province. Human trafficking is more prevalent in Ontario than in the rest of Canada, accounting for about two-thirds of police-reported cases in the country, according to the provincial government. The IJFS argues the disparity could be attributed to the large numbers of urban areas and increased access to major transportation and transit hubs for mobility across the province.
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OPP Detective Inspector and IJFS lead Jordan Whitesell said the partnership has made it easier for police services to share intelligence and track suspects across jurisdictional boundaries. These cases are typically complex to solve, Det. Insp. Whitesell said, as traffickers frequently transport their victims to different locations to hide their activity. Investigations take about twice as long as other violent offences.
Det. Insp. Whitesell said the new strategy also allowed investigators to identify repeat offenders. In a case last year, for example, the IJFS was able to identify other victims after one survivor came forward to police, which resulted in several human trafficking and assault charges.
“We have had the ability to detect traffickers that in the past would try to exploit our jurisdictional boundaries to their own benefit,” he said in an interview. “We still think that human trafficking is an under-reported crime and that we’re just touching the tip of the iceberg.”
The IJFS is also working with an Indigenous researcher in the northwestern region of the province in an effort to crack down on trafficking in the area. It is estimated that 50 per cent of trafficked women and girls in Canada are Indigenous.
In a statement, Julia Drydyk, executive director of the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, said this new partnership is allowing police to combine resources and be more pro-active, but that more investment is also needed in social services, including crisis intervention and safe housing supports.
Dustin Cook