I rise to support Motion No. 439 to urge the government to raise awareness of the magnitude of modern day slavery and human trafficking.

It is hard to fathom that, in 2019, we still tolerate forms of slavery on our planet. Slavery is often mistakenly perceived as a phenomenon of the past that no longer exists. The large-scale slavery of Africans remains with us and has become a literary theme.

In Véronique Olmi’s poignant book Bakhita, which is based on a true story, the heroin is born in Darfur in 1869. She is taken to Sudan, where slave trafficking is rampant. She is seven years old when her two abductors sell her to masters who beat and insult their slaves. I will read an excerpt.

The slave trader took her chin in his hands, forcing her to open her mouth and show her teeth. He threw a stick, expecting her to run to retrieve it and then bring it back. She did not understand at first. She did not run to get it. He slapped her and started over. She ran. The man spit when she fell. Her legs could no longer carry her...She did not understand what was expected of her. She was frantic. She did not know what they wanted. They inspected her. Everywhere. It hurt...

This passage carefully describes the violence that far too many people experience daily. In the meantime, forms of slavery may have changed a bit, but the violence still remains. Today, what we call modern slavery includes forced labour, sex trafficking, and forced marriages. As my colleague said, these phenomena affect girls in particular and women across the globe who are still victims of inequality and discrimination.

An estimated 4.8 million, almost exclusively girls and women, are victims of forced sexual exploitation, and 15 million people, again mostly girls, have been forced to marry. A vast majority of these forms of exploitation occur far away from here in countries where young girls are married or sold to much older men. They experience early pregnancies that result in horrible complications such as fistulas. Canada is not immune to this either. Barely a month ago, 43 Mexicans who were reduced to slavery were freed by police in the Barrie region in Ontario. These men were forced by their traffickers to work as cleaners for $50 a month.

At a time when the debate over prostitution is often reduced to a question of individual choices and women’s freedom, it is vital to remember that the line between so-called sex work and sexual exploitation is not always clear. I participated in researching and writing a paper entitled Prostitution: Time to Take Action that was published by Quebec’s Conseil du statut de la femme. I’d like to read you an excerpt from the testimony of a 25-year-old Montreal woman named Marie, who fell into the clutches of a violent pimp who forced her to hand over all her earnings, isolated her from her family and controlled all her movements. That’s a form of slavery too.

This is what she had to say.

He was always watching. I wasn’t allowed to turn my head, to talk to who I wanted. I danced every night. I was raped three times a week at the bar where I danced. I had to call his cell phone every 30 minutes to tell him what I had been doing, how many clients and dancers there were in the room. He calculated in his head how much money I had to bring back at the end of the night. If I didn’t bring back enough, I’d be beaten. One day, he broke two of my teeth. He liked to strangle me until I lost consciousness.

It is difficult to imagine that the trafficking of women and girls actually exists in Canada. What is more, it disproportionately affects Indigenous women. In Quebec, television series and the arrest of pimps brought to light this clandestine phenomenon in which young girls end up under the control of street gangs, where they are conditioned to their new reality through repeated rape, locked up and, most importantly, taken far from home to other provinces such as Ontario and Alberta so that the gangs can make as much money as they can from them by passing them from client to client. It is difficult to determine the scope of this phenomenon, and members of the Quebec National Assembly are proposing to conduct a parliamentary inquiry to take stock of the situation.

Laws are essential. Unfortunately, one of the tools to better prevent exploitation and human trafficking, Bill C-38, which amends the Criminal Code, has been stuck at first reading stage in the House of Commons for two years now, and I am worried that we will not be able to examine it here in the Senate before the election. It isn’t too late for the new Minister of Justice to get it back on track. Otherwise, it will be a missed opportunity. Thank you.