The Sex Trafficking of Women into Canada: Exploring the Government’s Approach to Prevention, Protection, and Prosecution

In 2002, Canada ratified the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children. Nearly a decade later, it released its first National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, designated a government-led task force, and approved a budget specifically allocated for human trafficking initiatives and programming. The main objective of this thesis is to determine the kind of approach the Government of Canada has implemented to address the issue of international sex trafficking into Canada, to determine whether anything is exempted or neglected from this approach, and to explore what this could mean for victims of sex trafficking. I use a qualitative narrative analysis of the Canadian government’s publications on the issue of human trafficking including policy, programming, and research-related documents. The findings reveal that Canada has implemented an approach which emphasizes the safety and security of the country which is indicative of a narrative that frames international sex trafficking as a threat. These findings further reveal a negative impact of such framing on trafficking victims. In employing an approach which prioritizes the safety and security of the state, Canada neglects the notion that human trafficking violates a person’s human rights, overlooks a consideration of the root causes of trafficking, and under-prioritizes the notion of ‘victim’ despite the phenomenon continuing to produce new victims each year in Canada