Nearly half of all human trafficking cases reported in Canada over the last decade have occurred within five major cities, according to Statistics Canada.
The government agency released its latest data on human trafficking last week, which revealed a slight decrease in cases last year, with 570 in 2023, compared to 597 in 2022.
However, over four-fifths of all recorded cases took place in large urban areas, accounting for 45% of all human trafficking cases.
The cities with the highest human trafficking rate are Toronto (20%), Ottawa (9%), Halifax (6%), Montreal (6%) and London (4%).
While there was a dip in cases last year, the overall trend of human trafficking in Canada has been on the rise for the last ten years.
“Just over 4,500 incidents of human trafficking were reported by police services in Canada from 2013 to 2023. These incidents accounted for 0.02% of all police-reported crime during this period and represented an average annual rate of 1.1 incidents per 100,000 population,” reads the report.
“Overall, there has been a general year-over-year increase in the number of police-reported incidents of human trafficking from 2013 to 2023, with the biggest jump occurring from 2018 to 2019.”
Executive director of the Centre to End Human Trafficking Julia Drydyk noted that all five of those cities are located along two of the top human trafficking corridors in Canada; Highway 401 and the Trans-Canada Highway.
“We know that these corridors are being systematically used by traffickers for a few reasons,” Drydyk told the London Free Press on Friday.
“One is to isolate the victims and keep them dependent on their trafficker, to keep them removed from their family, friends and support networks. It’s also to avoid law enforcement detection and to capitalize on those various commercial sex industry markets in those major urban centres.”
Human trafficking is generally categorized as either being for sex or labour involving the exploitation of people through force, fraud and coercion.
According to Statistics Canada, women account for 93% of the 3,558 human trafficking victims over the last 10 years, while men make up 83% of the 2,697 alleged perpetrators.
“About one-quarter (23%) were children and youth younger than 18 years. A small number of victims (7%) were men and boys,” reads the report.
“During this time, the largest proportion of victims were aged 18 to 24 years (42%), while over one in five victims (23%) were aged 25 to 34 years. Of the 3,223 women and girl victims of human trafficking, two-thirds (68%) were aged 24 years and younger. Almost 9 in 10 men and boy victims (88%) were 18 years and older.”
The overwhelming majority of victims, (91%), knew their traffickers beforehand, whereas the remaining proportion of victims (9%), didn’t know their accused trafficker.
“Victims were most often trafficked by an intimate partner (34%) or a casual acquaintance (22%). A tactic employed by some traffickers involves drawing a potential victim into a romantic relationship with promises of love and affection, with the end goal of exploitation,” it said.
Drydyk noted that human trafficking isn’t just a big-city problem.
“We get calls from basically every community across Canada, from the largest urban centres to the smallest rural hamlets,” she said.
Dryduk encourages anyone who has suffered from human trafficking or may have information on a missing person to contact her organization’s 24-hour hotline at 1-833-900-1010, which connects victims and survivors with services.