human trafficking and exploitation is an
ongoing problem throughout the world
even in developed countries like the
United States and Canada hi I’m Rebecca
Brayton and welcome to watchmojo.com and
today we’re speaking with author
Benjamin Perrin about his book invisible
chains and about putting an end to
modern-day slavery so tell us about your
book invisible chains many people
including myself thought human
trafficking only happened overseas I
started working on this issue in
Cambodia 10 years ago this book for the
very first time reveals that this is
happening in our communities it’s
happening right across the country
including here in Quebec it involves not
just women brought in from abroad and
exploited in the sex trade it also
includes Canadian victims we exploited
our own country in the sex trade and in
some cases traffic to the United States
the victims are also men one in four
foreign trafficking victims in Canada
are men and a recent case in in Hamilton
really explodes that problem there were
19 men from hungry brought in forced to
work on construction sites for no pay
locked in basements and fed only scraps
of food once a day so you know this is
something which is happening in our
communities and the reason why the book
is called invisible chains is that these
people who are being exploited by these
traffickers are being controlled by
chains they’re just as powerful as the
physical chains that we knew from the
slavery of old but these chains are not
able to be seen just by meeting the
person people often say well why don’t
they just call the police or why don’t
they escape and some victims try to
escape and they and they pay the price
dearly if they’re not successful them
some of them do escape and they that’s
how we know about these cases but we’ve
got to be so careful here we’re not
blaming the victim that’s a really
common response that some people have
here how is the internet change the game
for human traffickers well it’s it’s
made it far more effective at once a
victim who’s advertised on craigslist is
fully visible right men can purchase her
the traffickers can lower prices which
they do post photos and it’s free and
they believe it’s anonymous which it
turns out it actually is not necessarily
and at the same time though they can
move their victims constantly so people
often say well you know why aren’t you
focusing on on those weekly newspapers
with all those ads in the back I
actually take a shot at them as well in
this book I say that if you’re going to
collect it advertising revenue from an
escort agency you need to do some due
diligence at least spot check a few them
because we know that escort agencies
have been used as fronts for sex
trafficking can in fact every outlet
that you can think of strip clubs escort
agencies massage
parlours all have found human
trafficking victims in them you focus
specifically on the problem in Canada
but tell us about this problem
throughout the world this is a global
problem and the US State Department puts
out an annual report every year it ranks
countries around the world there’s not a
single country that is not affected in
some way by this either as a source
country meaning that their their
citizens become victims as a transit
point or as a destination where the
exploitation is happening in Canada’s
case it’s all three mess methods of
human trafficking that we’ve got and so
this problem is really flourished below
the radar for years now you know why are
people hearing about it now well partly
because it’s only been a crime for five
years that’s it it was not a crime to
traffic in people until 2005 in the
Criminal Code as one of the foremost
experts on this topic tell us about some
of the research that you’ve undertaken
to learn more about this problem well I
determined to sort of not go for
anecdotal information there was a lot of
stuff about human trafficking in Canada
written a few years ago which they’d
make big statements like Oh traffic
victims come from Asia that turns out to
be true but it doesn’t give you enough
information to provide an intervention
how are they coming here what methods of
control or their traffickers using which
countries specifically in Asia which has
happens to be a pretty big continent and
so we’ve been able to really get down to
the bottom of this sort of thing we
found out that the top force source
countries for foreign trafficking to
Canada are China the Philippines romania
and moldova and what’s common to all
four countries is they have all been
criticized for failing to deal with a
problem in some cases they’re complicit
in an organized crime case of Moldova
for example corruption and also as part
of the problem and in other cases for
example with China victims who returned
home to China are eventually punished by
the state because they’re viewed as
having tarnished the reputation of the
country this is something you often hear
is the sex trade is called the world’s
oldest profession well there’s a lot of
people now who say what’s the oldest
opression and we don’t have to accept it
any more than we accepted discrimination
against people’s ethnic backgrounds
slavery or that women couldn’t vote
these were things that were also
thousands of years in the making and one
day we stood up against them and that’s
really why I hope this book can be a
powerful call for action here in Canada
thank you very much thank you
you
ongoing problem throughout the world
even in developed countries like the
United States and Canada hi I’m Rebecca
Brayton and welcome to watchmojo.com and
today we’re speaking with author
Benjamin Perrin about his book invisible
chains and about putting an end to
modern-day slavery so tell us about your
book invisible chains many people
including myself thought human
trafficking only happened overseas I
started working on this issue in
Cambodia 10 years ago this book for the
very first time reveals that this is
happening in our communities it’s
happening right across the country
including here in Quebec it involves not
just women brought in from abroad and
exploited in the sex trade it also
includes Canadian victims we exploited
our own country in the sex trade and in
some cases traffic to the United States
the victims are also men one in four
foreign trafficking victims in Canada
are men and a recent case in in Hamilton
really explodes that problem there were
19 men from hungry brought in forced to
work on construction sites for no pay
locked in basements and fed only scraps
of food once a day so you know this is
something which is happening in our
communities and the reason why the book
is called invisible chains is that these
people who are being exploited by these
traffickers are being controlled by
chains they’re just as powerful as the
physical chains that we knew from the
slavery of old but these chains are not
able to be seen just by meeting the
person people often say well why don’t
they just call the police or why don’t
they escape and some victims try to
escape and they and they pay the price
dearly if they’re not successful them
some of them do escape and they that’s
how we know about these cases but we’ve
got to be so careful here we’re not
blaming the victim that’s a really
common response that some people have
here how is the internet change the game
for human traffickers well it’s it’s
made it far more effective at once a
victim who’s advertised on craigslist is
fully visible right men can purchase her
the traffickers can lower prices which
they do post photos and it’s free and
they believe it’s anonymous which it
turns out it actually is not necessarily
and at the same time though they can
move their victims constantly so people
often say well you know why aren’t you
focusing on on those weekly newspapers
with all those ads in the back I
actually take a shot at them as well in
this book I say that if you’re going to
collect it advertising revenue from an
escort agency you need to do some due
diligence at least spot check a few them
because we know that escort agencies
have been used as fronts for sex
trafficking can in fact every outlet
that you can think of strip clubs escort
agencies massage
parlours all have found human
trafficking victims in them you focus
specifically on the problem in Canada
but tell us about this problem
throughout the world this is a global
problem and the US State Department puts
out an annual report every year it ranks
countries around the world there’s not a
single country that is not affected in
some way by this either as a source
country meaning that their their
citizens become victims as a transit
point or as a destination where the
exploitation is happening in Canada’s
case it’s all three mess methods of
human trafficking that we’ve got and so
this problem is really flourished below
the radar for years now you know why are
people hearing about it now well partly
because it’s only been a crime for five
years that’s it it was not a crime to
traffic in people until 2005 in the
Criminal Code as one of the foremost
experts on this topic tell us about some
of the research that you’ve undertaken
to learn more about this problem well I
determined to sort of not go for
anecdotal information there was a lot of
stuff about human trafficking in Canada
written a few years ago which they’d
make big statements like Oh traffic
victims come from Asia that turns out to
be true but it doesn’t give you enough
information to provide an intervention
how are they coming here what methods of
control or their traffickers using which
countries specifically in Asia which has
happens to be a pretty big continent and
so we’ve been able to really get down to
the bottom of this sort of thing we
found out that the top force source
countries for foreign trafficking to
Canada are China the Philippines romania
and moldova and what’s common to all
four countries is they have all been
criticized for failing to deal with a
problem in some cases they’re complicit
in an organized crime case of Moldova
for example corruption and also as part
of the problem and in other cases for
example with China victims who returned
home to China are eventually punished by
the state because they’re viewed as
having tarnished the reputation of the
country this is something you often hear
is the sex trade is called the world’s
oldest profession well there’s a lot of
people now who say what’s the oldest
opression and we don’t have to accept it
any more than we accepted discrimination
against people’s ethnic backgrounds
slavery or that women couldn’t vote
these were things that were also
thousands of years in the making and one
day we stood up against them and that’s
really why I hope this book can be a
powerful call for action here in Canada
thank you very much thank you
you
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