Organizers call it a first – a cross-border conference targeting human trafficking was held in Winnipeg Friday.
It included representatives from 52 Canadian law enforcement, victim care and advocacy sectors, as well as a human trafficking taskforce from North Dakota.
Information shared at the session will be reviewed and published in a report with recommendations for an international protocol to help end human trafficking between Manitoba and North Dakota.
Organizers said an increase in the North Dakota oil industry since 2012, has resulted in an influx of temporary workers, and a demand for sex trade workers.
“We’ll be talking about developing protocol between United States and Canada and how we can ensure that we have a collaborative system in place and a responsive system,” said Barb Gosse, CEO of the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking.
“Not only that, we have to train border control members as well, so if there are incidents of human trafficking we can end those incidents from happening,” she said.
Gosse said she hopes this event will be the first of many across Canada and in the United States, aimed at ending human trafficking.
