Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the difference between human trafficking and smuggling?
Smuggling is a crime against the state whereas human trafficking is a crime against the individual. Smuggling typically refers to the movement of people across borders, with consent. The person smuggled might pay, and give consent, to be brought across borders. With smuggling, the person is released upon arrival and there is no continued relationship and no further exploitation ensues. However, it is possible that a person may pay to be smuggled and upon arrival may be forced into an exploitative process, for example, under the guises of paying off a travel debt. At this point, human smuggling has become human trafficking.
2. What is the relationship of human trafficking with prostitution?
Several countries have experimented with national models of legalized prostitution within government-regulated sectors. These countries argue that regulation may help reduce sex trafficking. Germany and the Netherlands legalized prostitution within a government-regulated sector between 1999 and 2002. New Zealand and several states in Australia did too. Other countries—including Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland—also regulate prostitution.
In contrast to a legal regulation model, Sweden chose in 1999 to criminalize sex buying, pimping, and brothel keeping, while also decriminalizing the act of prostitution. Since 1999, there has been a decrease in known human trafficking cases, and a shrinkage of the commercial sex industry. Subsequently, other governments such as in South Korea, Denmark, and Scotland have variously considered or implemented measures aimed at shrinking the realm of legality for buying commercial sex. These experiments bear further examination as efforts to narrow the vulnerability to sex trafficking.
The philosophy behind these different movement lies in the perception of prostitution as legitimate work vs. prostitution as sexual exploitation. The debate is heated and polarized, but it is crucial to remember that both sides of the argument support combating and eradicating human trafficking and both recognize trafficking for prostitution as an abhorrent human rights abuse. See The Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women and The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women for more details on this debate.
3. What is the relationship between human trafficking and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program?
An example of this phenomenon: A worker is recruited in his home town in a South Asian country for a six month contract in a central Alberta greenhouse. The labour recruiting company tells the worker that he will earn $3000 a month in addition to overtime payments for more than 40 hours worked in a week, and he will receive free room, board, medical care, and one day off per week. Upon arrival, however, the worker discovers that he is to be paid $1000 per month with no paid overtime, and deductions of $600 a month are to be taken from his paycheck for room and board. His passport has been taken away from him and he is told if he tries to leave, he will be deported. He was deceived by the labour recruiter and coerced by his employer to continue his labour on terms to which the labourer did not consent. This can be considered trafficking in persons. However, the definition of “exploitation” in the Criminal Code needs to be considered. While the courts have not yet interpreted the meaning of exploitation, Section 279 says exploitation occurs when someone causes another person “to provide, or offer to provide, labour or a service by engaging in a conduct that, in all the circumstances, could reasonably be expected to cause the other person to believe that their safety or the safety of a person known to them would be threatened if they failed to provide, or offer to provide, the labour or service”. Whether or not the worker could legally be considered trafficked would depend on the court’s interpretation of if his safety was being threatened. There are also legal provisions under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (Section 118) that prohibit any person from “knowingly organize the coming into Canada of one or more persons by means of abduction, fraud, deception or use or threat of force or coercion.” This provision can lead to penalties of a fine of not more than $1,000,000 or to life imprisonment, or to both.
4. What is the relationship between human trafficking and bonded labour?
One form of force or coercion is the use of a bond, or debt, to keep a person in subjugation. This is referred to in law and policy as “bonded labour” or “debt bondage.” It is included as a form of exploitation related to trafficking in the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. Many workers around the world fall victim to debt bondage when they assume an initial debt as part of the terms of employment; others inherit debt in more traditional systems of bonded labour. Traditional bonded labour in South Asia enslaves huge numbers of people in this way from generation to generation; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) estimate that the number of bonded labourers in India alone ranges from 20 million to 65 million. Bonded labour can exist in Canada where individuals are coerced into paying back recruitment or transportation fees arranged by traffickers.
