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Is there human trafficking in Estevan?

Human trafficking is a dark organized crime activity. And it’s very deep under the radar for many people especially the general public.
Paul Ladouceur
Police Chief Paul Ladouceur

Human trafficking is a dark organized crime activity. And it’s very deep under the radar for many people especially the general public.

Smaller communities like Estevan are often viewed as safer places since it’s always more difficult to be invisible in a city where a lot of people at least know of each other.

However, the real picture suggests that it would be blind to call any place absolutely safe.

The Mercury spoke to Estevan Police Chief Paul Ladouceur about human trafficking and the situation in the Energy City.

He noted that up until April 2018, when the backpage.com classified advertising website that developed into the largest marketplace for buying and selling sex, was still up and running, they saw a lot of advertisements on it, which could be a part of the human trafficking system.

“We can’t say with 100 per cent certainty that every add on there was involved in human trafficking. What we can say is that there are cases where women and sometimes men are forced into the sex trade,” said Ladouceur.

People often look at human trafficking as something that’s coming from other countries. Foreigners are lured into Canada under the cloak of cleaning or modelling jobs, for example. When they make it here they already don’t have their passports and are usually terrified by violence and threats. And the original job offer morphs into the sex trade.  

However, according to Ladouceur, human trafficking doesn’t only happen internationally.

“It often happens locally, or provincially, or nationally as well. People get this misconception that human trafficking has to be cross border,” said Ladouceur.

He compared human trafficking to drug trafficking where people are selling a product, which in this cases is a human body. But in the case of human trafficking, the product can be reused over and over again. And this criminal activity knows no borders, be it national, or within communities.

“We’ve seen human trafficking case thorough massage parlors, and I’m not talking legitimate massage parlors... We’ve seen human trafficking cases through social media. We’ve seen it through old mainstream prostitution… It comes in all forms, all shapes and all sizes,” said Ladouceur.

So do we look at the problem of sex trafficking at the Estevan community as well?

“Absolutely! One hundred per cent. We are always mindful to the fact that human trafficking is taking place. The hardest part when it comes to human trafficking is having … co-operation,” said Ladouceur.

Victims are traumatized, scared to try to reach out for help and in many cases, are under surveillance all the time, which makes it even more difficult for the police to proceed with the investigation.

Even in communities the size of Estevan, it’s possible that there are people who are victims of human trafficking, who, for example, like in other places all over the world come to hotels to provide sex services. 

However, the EPS haven’t had any victims of human trafficking recently come forward to them. As of now, they also don’t have any information or intelligence that leads them to believe that there are some people in Estevan that may be victims. But it still doesn’t mean that it’s not happening.

Besides the fact that human trafficking systems operating both within Canada and internationally are well-organized and target the least protected social groups, the legislation aiming at battling human trafficking and prostitution has recently undergone some serious changes which made the investigation even more complex.

“It’s created in some cases I believe some complexities for police, some challenges that several police agencies are still working their way through to deal with,” said Ladouceur.

Police put a lot of effort into fighting human trafficking systems, but it’s impossible to change it without education. There is a number of ways to trick people into the system, especially when they are not aware of the danger or tend to believe that it’s something happening #NotInMyCity (movement raising awareness and taking collective action to end sexual exploitation and trafficking). 

One of the main schemes usually involves first charming stage, followed by a suggestion to move to a different part of the country to take the victim away from any connections or support. Then victims are either asked for a favour or offered a way to make money and no matter what the answer is in most cases at that point  they already don’t have a choice.

“The big education component here is this can be a case of someone who lives next door to you and begins a relationship with you, and takes you away and forces you to sell your body eventually for sex and for money,” said Ladouceur noting that not every case has to be a big organized crime.

“I think (the education about the topic) needs to be pushed forward to the general public, it needs to be discussed in schools, because often time these are 15-16-17-year-old girls (who become victims),” said Ladouceur.

He also outlined that communities need to have open honest discussions about the problem. Nobody likes to talk about things like that happening in their city but it will be impossible to change without education.