A 23-year-old man faces human trafficking charges after police were called to a downtown hotel Friday evening.
Winnipeg police received a check well-being call about a 23-year-old woman who had reportedly been held against her will as an escort in hotels around the city.
Police said the woman was driven from Montreal to Winnipeg on Dec. 4 for this purpose, and had been threatened if she didn’t go along with it.
When officers arrived they found the woman, along with the 23-year-old suspect and a 19-year-old woman, who claimed to be the suspect’s girlfriend.
The officers took the victim into care, Winnipeg Police Service said.
Garlin Voyant Candy, 23, from Quebec, has been charged with trafficking in persons, advertising sexual services and assault with a weapon.
‘Disturbing trend’: human trafficking numbers on the rise
Barb Gosse, the CEO of the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, said these incidents are far more common than most realize, with 94 per cent of all victims being Canadian.
“It’s becoming more and more prevalent right across this country. We are finding incidents in every province and territory,” said Gosse.
She said that the more people are being educated, the more incidents are being uncovered.
“It is illegal. The women and girls are coerced and forced,” said Gosse. “They are forced into this, so their consent – they do not consent to this at all. There is no consent when you are being trafficked.”
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Gosse said that incidents like the one regarding the 23-year-old woman from Montreal are techniques used by traffickers and pimps.
“These traffickers will try to isolate these individuals and one of the ways they do that is by moving them from city to city, from province to province,” she said.
“Unfortunately, in many respects, the victims become disorientated. They don’t know where they are. They’re constantly threatened, so they are constantly in fear for their lives.”
Gosse said the average age when girls are being recruited into trafficking operations is 14. She said that over the last year, there have been instances where girls have been 12 years old.
“Statistics Canada says that 25 per cent of all trafficked victims are minor.”
However, she said that these are only the incidents that are reported. Gosse said the sex industry is very much underground and numbers are much higher.
“It needs to be labelled as what it is. It is a severe human rights abuse. It is the most extreme form of violence that women and girls suffer in this country.”
“We need to make education and awareness a priority in this country. We don’t even have a national hotline on human trafficking,” Gosse added.
Police and frontline service providers are overtasked with the amount of incidents and with the number of victims that they have currently, she said.
“There needs to be a lot more resources put into ending this crime.”
- With files from Marta Czurylowicz
