What I am Reading Today...

Benjamin Perrin is a prof at UBC, in the Faculty of Law, and he has been an important voice in Canada in the fight against human trafficking. He studied at McGill (yay!) among other universities and founded the Future Group, an NGO that combats human trafficking. In fact, it was a Future Group research paper that brought attention to the fact that Canada kind of sucks when it comes to human trafficking legislation and response and why the government is now making efforts to correct this.

In February of this year, Perrin wrote an article that was published in The Lawyers Weekly. The article is called:

Confronting Human Trafficking in Canada
"Human trafficking is a complex problem that is only beginning to be understood in Canada, and immigration lawyers can play a much greater role in responding to it."

It's an interesting article about Canadian law on human trafficking and how (surprise, surprise) we're late to the party of preventing and responding to it within our borders nad beyond. At least we now have a law against trafficking in persons (passed in 2005), but helping victims of trafficking, especially when they are foreigners in Canada, is a slow and frustrating process. It would help it they weren't treated like criminals, right? It seems so obvious, but unfortunately, victims are often arrested and detained and treated like illegal immigrants who have been smuggled into Canada, not trafficked.

Which brings us to the difference between trafficking and smuggling! It's quite simple, really. In general, the difference is found in the choice of the person being transported. A smuggled person retains control over his or her life and decisions; if ever the control is taken out of that person's hands, it becomes trafficking. Does that make sense?

Anyway, more on that later. And more on what I'm reading on human trafficking later as well...