"I heard that young girls, mainly teenagers, were being abducted from rural
Mexican homes and being brought to the cities," she said.
Once there, MacLaren's sources said, the girls were forced into the sex trade.
"My immediate reaction was clearly one of shock and incredulity and immediately
wanting to be able to do something about it," she said. "To raise awareness or
to bring about a change."
It was this uneasy introduction to human trafficking that encouraged the
co-chair for the Rights and Democracy Delegation of Carleton University to
pursue it as the theme for a public forum being held recently.
Out of the Shadows: Voices from the Global Sex Trade will feature a number of
speakers and a film screening.
Combating the international migration of women and children who get caught up
in the web of sex slavery is not an easy task.
"It's something that is difficult to do because of the underground nature and
the need to have political will to address the underlying root causes of
trafficking," MacLaren said.
According to The Protection Project, operated by Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, Md., Canada is not immune to the horrors of human trafficking.
"Canada is a country of transit and destination for trafficking in women and
children," said a 2005 report.
It said that Asia-based criminal organizations recruit women from Asian
countries to work in brothels and massage parlours in Canadian cities. There is
also a large internal trafficking of both Canadians and foreigners.
The report goes on to say that at last estimate, in 1998, between 8,000 and
16,000 people were trafficked each year.
"It's a transnational problem that we can only come up with a durable solution
to through international co-operation," said MacLaren.
Cheryl Hotchkiss, women's rights co-ordinator for Amnesty International Canada,
said just the thought that women are being duped into trusting someone who is
offering them a better life or employment, but is then forced into sexual
slavery is a tough pill for many average Canadians to swallow.
The federal government has granted temporary residency permits to women who
have been trafficked. But Hotchkiss said many of these women don't initially
seek help from authorities, instead turning to chronically underfunded women
support agencies.
"There are few resources to provide medical, physiological and social support
to women who have been trafficked and have managed to get out of those
situations."
