Human Trafficking Info Hub

Every small act we take to grow our protective factors empowers and highlights our capacities and resilience. In turn, we limit the impact Risk Factors can have on us and prevent violence and exploitation.

This can include:

• developing relationships with supportive friends and family
• learning new skills
• participating in community events or activities
• participating in religious or spiritual ceremonies or events
• establishing routines
• reducing stress
• increasing access to education, sanitation, housing, employment, transportation, etc.

We must be mindful that protective factors are linked to privilege and we must work together to ensure there are less barriers and more opportunities for all to access resilient-building activities.

• Manipulating someone until they give in to a sexual act, including being coerced into prostitution
• Involves blackmailing, pressuring, threatening, intimidating and guilting someone into a sexual act
• Not giving consent on your own terms
• Not being given space or opportunity to freely say NO
• Consent given under coercion is not consent.

This is important to highlight with youth as coercion is often used to obtain consent in situations of human trafficking – but this consent is not legal.

“Understanding basic consent is one way to properly support survivors of human trafficking. Often, service providers, police, teachers or parents may assume that the survivor consented to their exploitation because they didn’t simply “walk away” or “say no”.

But the truth is, even though they may not have been chained to a bed like we see in the movies, the chains were there just the same.”

Marissa Kokkoros, Founder and Director of Aura Freedom

Another topic to explore when empowering communities and preventing exploitation is Healthy Relationships. There is so much to ‘unlearn’ due to harmful gender norms, societal expectations, culture, and other issues. People may find themselves in situations of exploitation because they could not recognize an unhealthy relationship. Perhaps, like so many of us, they didn’t grow up with healthy relationships modelled in their homes and could not recognize the red flags when they arose.

Healthy relationships does not just refer to romantic ones, but also friends, work relationships, and family members.

• Communication
• Mutual Respect
• Boundaries
• Safety
• Honesty
• Mutual Trust
• Enjoyment
• Acceptance
• Separate Identities

Consent is an absolutely necessary part of a healthy relationship. Consent in an intimate relationship or marriage should still be practiced when partners are interested in engaging in sexual activity. Just because you are in a relationship with someone does not give them automatic access to your body or give them the right to abuse or violate you in any way.

1 / 10 Canadians believe consent is not required or don’t know if it’s required between spouses or long-term partners.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s your first date or you’ve been married 20 years – consent is always needed – marital rape or rape within an intimate relationship is still rape.

The internet is a great place and provides incredible opportunities to learn, connect with friends and family, stay updated on world events, and more. With so many people using the internet for school, work, socializing and entertainment, there is also an increased risk of online exploitation. This is why we have to practice online safety to protect ourselves from harms which might endanger our personal information and lead to unsafe communications that affect our mental health, safety and well-being.

In hopes of gaining a big following and lots of friends, many people accept friend requests and private messages from people they do not know, allowing traffickers to easily gain personal information they will then use to exploit their victims. GPS and geo-tagging provides traffickers with information on frequently visited places and even real-time location updates. This sharing of personal information can put you at risk for exploitation. In fact, the increased isolation and online presence due to COVID-19 means that youth are more vulnerable to being recruited and groomed online.

By understanding how to navigate the internet safely, we can ensure the web remains a great place to be.

In a survey conducted by Aura Freedom with over 2000 youth in Toronto, 38% said they feel unsafe online and 73% said they have had online interactions with someone they didn’t know, showing a significant gap in internet safety awareness (Aura Freedom, 2019).

• When someone doesn’t provide much information about themselves, but wants to know everything about you.
• Wanting to keep all exchanges a secret – going private, talking on Snapchat, vanishing modes on Messenger/Instagram – “Are you alone?”
• “I know a way you can earn money fast.” – If something seems too good to be true, it probably is, trust your instincts.
• Wanting to meet up too suddenly, especially in an isolated or sketchy places; insisting that you go alone.
• Asking for nude photos fairly quickly or sending nudes to you.
• Stalker behaviour (e.g. ridiculous amounts of one-sided messages or liking all of your pictures in what seems like a second).

• Change privacy settings
• Do not accept friend/follow/DM requests from strangers-You are under no obligation to respond to messages from anyone
• Turn off location
• Avoid going into private chat with strangers
• Block people who are inappropriate, rude or abusive
• Avoid sending nude photos with your face or recognizable tattoos that someone can identify you in
• Just knowing that sexual exploitation often starts online these days