Governments have a remarkable way of framing issues differently from how the average person sees them.
Take the B.C. government, which marked the UN’s World Day Against Human Trafficking by announcing a new specialized anti-trafficking policing unit. B.C. Solicitor General and Public Safety Minister Nina Krieger said the unit will investigate human trafficking crimes and support victims. She added that its education team will train officers on responding to human trafficking and on differentiating between what is and isn’t human trafficking.
Wait, what? A key element of the unit is ensuring it doesn’t go after what isn’t human trafficking?
Krieger clarified: although human trafficking victims are often forced to engage in sex work, the unit will not target sex workers who are there by choice.
Just in case there was any doubt, reiterated: “To be clear, those who engage in sex work out of their own choice are not the targets of our province’s response to human trafficking.”
Apparently the unit’s role needs to be so well defined that an education team is tasked with keeping the lines from blurring.
Then police said the same thing. BC RCMP Chief Supt. Elijah Rain said the unit “will not focus on sex workers engaged in consensual sex work.”
It almost sounded like an effort to reassure sex‑worker advocacy organizations that present prostitution as a freely chosen profession. It even sounded a bit compassionate as police suggested they have better things to do than monitor what consenting adults do for money. But characterizing sex work as comparable to restaurant work, with staff tolerating conditions because of flexible hours and good tips, ignores the reality of exploitation.
To confirm what was being said, The B.C. Catholic’s Terry O’Neill asked the RCMP about the remarks. Doesn’t Canada’s Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) reject the notion of sex work as a neutral market service? Doesn’t its preamble state: “It is important to denounce and prohibit the purchase of sexual services because it creates a demand for prostitution that leads to the exploitation of vulnerable persons, especially women and children.”
The RCMP didn’t back down. A spokesperson confirmed the unit is not interested in sex workers engaged in consensual sex work or their clients. “These individuals are not being trafficked. The clear focus of the unit is to target individuals and groups who are trafficking persons that are typically forced into the sex trade or other forms of forced labour.”
Authorities appear confident they can draw a clean line between human trafficking and the sex trade: a lot of trafficked individuals do sex work, but not all sex workers are trafficked.
Taking that approach, however, ignores the disturbing data. Many sex workers started as children and remain in the trade because they see no way out. A Canadian study found more than a third of people in prostitution started before age 18, and a U.S. study found that one in five women who entered as minors said they were coerced.
The Canadian bishops were clear in their 2021 pastoral letter on human trafficking and sexual exploitation. They opposed the arguments of “sex‑work” activists pushing for decriminalization and the claim that prostitution is merely an employment choice. The bishops wrote: “Treating sex as ‘work’ masks the physical, psychological and sexual violence inflicted on the prostituted person. Prostitution involves selling something that by its nature cannot be bought or sold and is therefore inherently exploitative.”
Vancouver police and the City of Vancouver have said for over a decade that prostitution is not an enforcement priority. Their focus is on exploitation, youth, gangs, and trafficking. But those very elements overlap trafficking and sex work. So how meaningfully free is sex work, and how many truly “choose” it under such circumstances?
Barbara Renaud of the Archdiocese of Vancouver’s Anti‑Human Trafficking Committee said the new unit is a step toward eradicating the horrific crime of human trafficking, but most trafficking in Canada is sexual exploitation through prostitution. “The underlying cause for human trafficking and prostitution is the demand for commercial sex,” she said.
Until prostitution laws are fully enforced, the demand for women, children, and youth will remain and continue to victimize them, Renaud said.
Trisha Baptie, founder of Formerly Exploited Voices now Educating (E.V.E.), also welcomed efforts to end human trafficking but said, “We must always be looking at the root reason for the exploitation, which is the demand for paid sex.”
Paying for sex is illegal in Canada, Baptie noted, and if police consistently enforced the law, it would be “like going after human trafficking at the root and cutting it off.”
Your voice matters! Join the conversation by submitting a Letter to the Editor here.
