Date/Time
Date(s) - October 18, 2016
11:00 am - 1:00 pm
Location
Joyce and Kingsway
Categories No Categories
Vancouver could become global hub for sex slavery
Police and City not enforcing Canada’s human trafficking law, coalition says
Local organizations are mobilizing Oct. 18 to draw attention to the need to protect women, girls, and aboriginal youth from exploitation in Vancouver
VANCOUVER (Oct. 14, 2016) – A coalition of diverse voices is coming together to denounce the lack of municipal will and police enforcement in the battle against human trafficking in Vancouver.
Several interest groups will hold a Vancouver press conference Tuesday, Oct. 18, to announce a campaign to draw attention to the plight of trafficked women, girls and youth.
The Trafficked Human Campaign, built around an interactive website http://thetraffickedhuman.org and more than a dozen billboards and transit shelter ads around the Lower Mainland, is a mobilization to educate and raise awareness of the law around exploited and trafficked individuals in Canada. It is a summons to municipal and law enforcement leaders to enforce the existing law, and a call to all residents to assert their individual responsibility to report to police any evidence of the exploitation of women and youth.
Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael Miller has said, “Prostitution is nothing less than slavery. In a city that is Ground Zero for the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered women, it is unacceptable for us to tolerate anything that escalates the trafficking of girls, youth and women from Pacific Rim countries and aboriginal communities, effectively turning our city into a hub for globalized sex slavery.”
Pope Francis has said, “Human trafficking is an open wound on the body of contemporary society, a scourge upon the body of Christ. It is a crime against humanity.”
The website and billboard campaign will be rolled out Tuesday, Oct. 18, at 11 a.m. at the southwest corner of Kingsway and Joyce in Vancouver (at the Collingwood clock tower), near one of the new Buying Sex is a Crime anti-human trafficking billboards. A short prayer service will follow at nearby St. Mary’s Church, 5251 Joyce St., Vancouver.
For more information, contact Gwendoline Allison at 778-919-6173.