In February, country artist Paul Brandt spoke about an awakening to the depth of human trafficking in Alberta.
Today in Cochrane, not far from his home, the sad reality that human trafficking can exists anywhere was reinforced.
Brandt, founder of ##NotInMyCity and co-chair of the Alberta Centre to End Trafficking in Persons, participated in the RCMP press conference on the arrest of 47-year-old Darren Routhier on five charges related to human and sex trafficking.
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Brandt found the news shocking, concerning, and unfortunately, not surprising.
"I think that anywhere where there are vulnerable people, human trafficking is an outcome of vulnerability," said Brandt. "Often the way that we see human trafficking happen in Canada, it's not someone in a white van who's stealing someone necessarily, although that can happen. Often what we see happen is there's early childhood trauma."
He says the average age of being sexually abused in Canada is around seven years old, and the average age of first being trafficked is 13.
"There are chemical and physical changes to the brain when a person is abused, we know that, and it changes the trajectory of life and traffickers are able to identify those signs of vulnerability.
"The average number of years someone is trafficked in Canada is seven years. So now that 13-year-old is a 19-year-old and society generally sees her as someone who may have chosen that. But what we know after seeing the entire life cycle of vulnerability of human trafficking is this is actually a lack of choice."
He says Canadian law is the best law internationally to address human trafficking because it sees people who are in this position as having had no other choice and are in need of help and support.
And there is no statute of limitations on charges being laid.
"As we lean into that law here in Canada, more and more, we're going to be able to provide the supports that people need to be able to exit that and live the lives that they were intended to live."
Sex trafficking is a $180 billion-per-year global industry, with traffickers making $280,800 per victim annually. In Canada, 93 per cent of the trafficking victims are Canadians and 94 per cent are girls and women.
According to Statistics Canada, there were 3,996 police-reported incidents of human trafficking in Canada between 2011 and 2022. One in four victims of trafficking are children. Nine in 10 victims in police-reported human trafficking knew their accused trafficker, and one-third were trafficked by an intimate partner.
Brandt encourages people to become better informed of the issues surrounding human trafficking by visiting the #NotInMyCity website here.