Greater Sudbury Police Services received a $188,000 boost to support programs that combat human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Sudbury MPP Glenn Thibeault made the announcement on Feb. 16, indicating that the funding will be coming from the province's Civil Remedies Grant Program. The program functions under the Civil Remedies Act, which authorizes the Attorney General to ask civil courts to freeze, seize and order the forfeiture of the proceeds and instruments of unlawful activity to the Crown.
Forfeited property is liquidated and deposited into a special purpose account.
The $188,000 that the GSPS receives will be divided between a pair of initiatives. The Counter Sexual Exploitation Strategy will receive more than $99,000, while Project Freedom, which is slated to launch Feb. 26, will receive more than $89,000.
Human trafficking is the second-fastest growing crime in Canada, information provided by GSPS states, with 16,000 Canadians known to have been trafficked. Here in Sudbury, there have been 60 victims of human trafficking that have been identified since January of 2017, and last year, seven people were charged with human-trafficking-related offenses.
"It's really impossible to describe the devastation, it really is imprisonment, it's exploitation at its worst, it's selling and re-selling human beings and these are people in our community, our own kids, our own daughters, our own wives," said GSPS Chief Paul Pedersen.
"Often times it's seen as something foreign, something that happens in other communities and it's very much happening in every community across the province and across the country."
Funding will be used in order to staff a co-ordinator who will liaise with community organizations in a combined effort to assist victims and curb sexual exploitation and human trafficking in Sudbury.
"It's staffing dollars that are helping bring it to life," said Pedersen. "In both Project Homestead and our Sexual Exploitation Strategy there's a suite of partners. Everything from Sudbury Area Victims Services to violence against women groups in our community ... virtually every community organization that supports victims of sexual crimes is partners with us."
Thibeault explained the funds will help provide victim-centred services to at-risk women and girls, while preventing victimization and providing exit strategies, and assisting with investigations and prosecutions.
While the MPP didn't have hard numbers as far as how Sudbury stacks up compared to other communities with regard to human trafficking, he says that even one person being victimized is too many and that light needs to be shone on the issue.
"I'm thinking one (victim) is still one too many, but it is something that we should be recognizing as a community," said Thibeault. "It does happen here, if there's a total of 60 that were involved in human trafficking in some way, then we all need to come together and I think the funding that we provided today goes a long way in helping to take more steps and giving police more tools to be able to address this issue."
This year, the provincial government will be investing $1.7 million into key safety priorities through the Civil Remedies Grant Program. The Attorney General has awarded approximately $12.9 million in grants under the Civil Remedies Act.
