It’s a beautiful country with a more recent tumultuous and genocidal past, and we struggled to comprehend as we learned of the atrocities of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime. We walked the killing fields and sensed the voices of millions of victims crying for justice from beyond the shallow burial pits. We witnessed the bones, teeth, and bits of clothing still evident on the ground, brought up each time the rains fall and fail to wash away the sins of the past. We could feel the ripple effects of generations of trauma, abuse, and disregard for the sanctity of human life. The beauty of the jungle and Angkor Wat’s impressive architecture contrasted sharply with a history of slavery, dishonesty, coercion, murder, and abuse.
We met a spirit in Cambodia, and its hatred for human life knows no bounds.
While visiting, we were introduced to a fledgling NGO working to free child sex slaves. We listened as their organizer explained that because they were vastly under-resourced, all they could afford at the time was to pay traffickers the going rate for these children so that they could take them from the brothel for the day. They would bring the children to a safe location, feed them, let them play with toys, and let them be kids; but at night, they had to take them back to their owners.
I never lose grasp of the fact that Cambodia was once a prospering nation. No one could ever have imagined the horror that would befall it. It’s estimated that around 3,000,000 died during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, and the stage was set for an incredibly vulnerable population to be exploited. As Edmund Burke so eloquently stated, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Since Cambodia, we’ve been advocates in the fight against human trafficking and sexual exploitation. We’ve travelled to many countries, and while we’ve seen hope and joy expressed through the perseverance of the human spirit, we’ve also seen abject poverty and lawlessness. I remember returning to my home in Nashville from one such trip. I was scheduled for a lunch with a business associate, and I immediately began to share with him stories of the need we had witnessed. He stopped me midsentence.
“I don’t want to know.”
He then went on to share his dreams for parties he was planning, events he was attending, and investments he was considering. I was dumbfounded, but I suppose at least he knew the kind of person he wanted to be. He understood somewhere deep inside that with knowledge comes responsibility, and he naively believed that by ignoring evil and injustice, they wouldn’t be his problem.
My experience has shown me that this is not how it works. Ultimately, to fight against human trafficking and sexual exploitation is to take a stand for the limitless value of human life. It is to uphold human dignity. To ignore this issue is to erode the very foundation of democracy and civilization. Society crumbles under the weight when evil is ignored. It’s been proven throughout history time and time again.
Liz and I were introduced to Joy Smith and her foundation’s work through new circles we were running in of those who were equally convinced of the significance of the fight against human trafficking. Through events we’ve attended together and conversations we’ve had, I have always been impressed with Joy’s ability to fight tirelessly on behalf of victims and to bear the burdens of human trafficking survivors. She is a true Canadian hero, but, more than that, she is a champion of humanity. She has changed our nation and through the introduction and support of Bills C-268, C-310, and C-36 has provided us with an opportunity. We can sit idly by as a nation while lives are destroyed, or we can remain on the right side of history, which has always been about justice, equality, and freedom. Since the days of William Wilberforce this has been the choice facing humanity when faced with slavery. “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know” was his battle cry, and he and Joy have been history-makers who have encouraged me to raise awareness and fight against what is still one of the world’s largest industries. As of the date of publishing, there are more than 40 million slaves in the world today, and research and evidence have proven that sex trafficking is a growing issue in Canada. Aided by the fast pace of technology, perpetrators and those who would sexually exploit our population’s most vulnerable have the advantage. While sex trafficking affects all parts of Canadian society, Indigenous women and children are disproportionally represented as sex-trafficking victims. Although only 4 percent of Canada’s total population, the First Nation’s population represents 51 percent of those trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Not many books can save lives. This one can. The True Story of Canadian Human Trafficking is an important account of a trafficking victim, a trafficker, a john, and a woman who decided to take a stand on behalf of our population’s most vulnerable.
Even though the purchase of sex is a crime in Canada, our ability to affect change related to sex trafficking and sexual exploitation admittedly seems small. Operation by organized crime syndicates and a seemingly endless demand can make this feel like an insurmountable battle. While studies are showing that education, research, and awareness are key, as Joy states in this book, “we need to admit that the battle starts in our minds and in our hearts.” While stopping the atrocity of human trafficking seems complicated, never have I heard a more appropriate and elegant solution than that offered by one of emancipation’s first pioneers: “Let everyone regulate his conduct ... by the golden rule of doing to others as in similar circumstances we would have them do to us, and the path of duty will be clear before him” (William Wilberforce).
—Paul Brandt
Founder of The Buckspring Foundation
Founder of Not in My City
Member of Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame
preface
Human trafficking is having a devastating impact on Canada. When people hear of human trafficking, they often associate it with foreign girls who are brought into our country. This is happening, and it must be stopped. Yet many are shocked to learn that human trafficking is happening to Canadian girls on Canadian soil.
Our girls—from all backgrounds and all financial statuses across our country—are being lured into human trafficking for the purpose of sex slavery.
And they are being used by Canadian men.
Human trafficking is a network of good versus evil that includes girls who are lured into trafficking, the traffickers who control them, the “johns” or men who use the girls for sex, and the many citizens, organizations, police, teachers, religious leaders and politicians who are fighting to stop it. People like Joy Smith.
I have known Joy for many years. We were seated together at a fundraising banquet in Winnipeg for street children in Kenya when we discussed the possibility of a book on human trafficking in Canada. I knew next to nothing about it. I had assumed that the men who used girls came from low incomes and lived at or near the streets. But she corrected me by saying that johns come from every walk of life in Canada and are mostly commonly 30 to 60 years old with a good job.
I felt the blood drain from my face. She was describing men who are in the same age bracket as me.
How in the world does a man who should be helping destitute girls get himself into a state of mind where he misuses his power to cause such devastation in the life of a young girl?
Moreover, I wondered how a Canadian girl could be deceived into the world of human trafficking.
The best way for me to find out was to sit down with Canadian survivors of human trafficking to hear their stories from the very beginning, through every unimaginable detail of their ordeal, to discover how human trafficking works and what would have helped prevent them from entering into that world in the first place.
There
