Human trafficking action plan

Overview

We’re implementing the 9-point Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking to protect at-risk individuals from being trafficked in Alberta. We will empower survivors of trafficking and provide new ways to deal with traffickers.

Human trafficking is a serious crime taking 3 forms: sexual exploitation, forced labour trafficking, and trafficking in human organs or tissues. Traffickers use threats of violence to exploit people of all ages, ethnicities and genders. The victims are forced to work or engage in sexual conduct against their will. The threat of violence traps them in a cycle of exploitation.

Taking action

9-point Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking

Ten Alberta ministries are working together on the 9-point Action Plan that will:

1. adopt the “2002 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons” (Palermo Protocol) definition of human trafficking (complete)
2. create a provincial Human Trafficking Task Force which will bring together representatives of relevant ministries, agencies, police services, and community groups to share information and coordinate action on an ongoing basis (complete)
3. increase efforts to educate the public, particularly vulnerable groups, about the reality of human trafficking, and report tips to the new National Human Trafficking Hotline (work underway)
4. ensure appropriate training for judges, prosecutors and first responders, including police officers, nurses and doctors (work underway)
5. ensure the Ministry of Labour provides information to Temporary Foreign Workers in Alberta about their rights under Canadian law (work underway)
6. work with community groups, other provinces and the federal government to collect and share better data on human trafficking, and to ensure coordinated action as part of the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking (work underway)
7. name and shame traffickers by publishing the names of businesses found to have knowingly facilitated human trafficking (work underway)
8. lobby the federal government to strengthen penalties against human traffickers by bringing Bill C-452 into force (work underway)
9. introduce legislation to establish a process for restraining orders, torts and proclaim a Human Trafficking Awareness Day (complete)

Human trafficking awareness and training

The Action Plan recommends training for front-line workers and people in the court system to help combat human trafficking. To support this recommendation:

• we are creating free e-learning courses for various groups and agencies currently working on human trafficking files, including:
  • Alberta Justice employees
  • other involved ministries’ employees
  • victim-serving organizations throughout the province
• we are working on:
  • training for other front-line workers and groups like judges and prosecutors
  • online tools to raise public awareness about human trafficking so people have the knowledge to help end human trafficking in Alberta

Resources

• The Reading Stone – The Survivor’s Lens to Human Trafficking

News

• Fighting human trafficking (March 27, 2022)
• Task force to help protect some of Alberta’s most vulnerable (May 19, 2020)
• Bill 8: Protecting Survivors of Human Trafficking Act (April 7, 2020)
• Standing against human trafficking (February 21, 2020)