The main focus of EMPOWER PEOPLE lies on awareness raising and sensitization trainings for law enforcement agencies. The organization is also offering direct victim support and assistance to women vulnerable to human trafficking and domestic violence.
If mail-order means retail, a local radio contest where the prize is a “hot Russian chick” could be trafficking.Edmonton rock station the “BEAR” has aroused the ire of the Chrysalis Anti Human Trafficking Network, a Canadian coalition of nine organizations. At issue: the station’s partnership with an American mail-order bride company to award a 13-night trip complete with airfare and accommodation to “meet the lucky lady.”“The harm it can do is it minimizes the seriousness of what might be happening at the delivery side of the equation,” said Jacqui Linder, the Edmonton-based executive director of Chrysalis.“We have no idea whether women are participating voluntarily in this program. Even if they appear to be participating voluntarily, it’s possible that there’s coercion, either because of poverty, family pressure or organized crime,” she said.“It’s not that they necessarily want to come but they are poor so they often have no choice. Our concern is that a contest of this nature reinforces themindset that people can be sold, auctioned or traded, which is a very, very dangerous mindset to perpetuate,” Linder said.While the contest assumes the “hot” Russian woman whose attention is up for grabs is consenting, there may be no way to ensure that, she said.“It is equally possible that these women are desperate and afraid and using this as a strategy to survive. That’s not marriage, that is something else,” she said.Shae Invidiata of Toronto-based Free-Them was repulsed by the contest.“The idea that a person could be viewed as a prize or a thing is to completely strip them of their dignity and worth as a human, reducing them to just that, a thing or an object,” Invidiata said.“It demonstrates the ownership and control one must have over this person in order to be even capable of offering them up.”Alberta’s immigration minister pulled his department’s advertising from the station.Thomas Lukaszuk called the promotion “in poor taste,” unworthy of support from taxpayer bucks.Linder said statistics suggest about 2,000 individuals from other countries are trafficked into and through Canada every year for the purposes of sex and labor exploitation.According to Chrysalis stats of February, there were currently 46 human trafficking cases being prosecuted in Canadian courts, involving 68 accused
trafficking offenders and 80 victims.The very term “mail-order” implies a retail transaction, but that’s not necessarily the case, Linder acknowledged. On the other hand, some transactions pitched under the guise of mail-order marriage could indeed be trafficking, she said.“We do not know what percentage involved mail-order brides,” Linder said. SOURCE
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