10 years of data show Ontario is a hub for human traffickers, and it’s only getting worse 

Every year since 2013 an increasing number of Ontario’s women and girls have become prey for human traffickers. Of the more than 3,200 female victims in the last decade, 68 percent of them were 24 or younger; 23 percent were under the age of 18. Over 90 percent were sold into the sex trade by someone they knew, either an intimate partner, family member or acquaintance. 

All of them are left with lifelong trauma. 

Pouring salt in the open wound is the reality that the vast majority of the perpetrators walk free, facing no consequences for their deplorable actions.

New data from Statistics Canada analyzing police-reported data on human trafficking between 2013 and 2023 offers a grim view of the country’s efforts over the last decade to stop this crime and help survivors. 

Despite increased awareness among the public; new forms of training for police officers; and new tools like the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline to connect survivors or their families with resources to get help, this crime continues to flourish in all of Ontario’s large cities and towns.

Unfortunately, the data from Statistics Canada only provides a fraction of the true scale of this crime in the country. Human trafficking is notoriously underreported due to an unwillingness on behalf of victims to come forward and an inconsistent application of police resources across Canada.

“Identifying incidents of human trafficking depends in part on police resources and expertise, as well as victims’ ability to recognize and report their experiences with trafficking,” the Statistics Canada report published November 1 states.

Andrew Hammond, President of the Ontario Gang Investigators Association, in August, told the Standing Committee on Justice Policy at Queen’s Park that it can be difficult for officers to intervene in these situations.

This has led to an increase in trafficking by street gangs. 

“Why would a street gang decide to get into this type of crime?...It’s easy to evade police. If you’re trafficking a couple of girls and you have them in the back seat of your car and you’re heading north for a weekend or a week, you don’t have any crime, unless one of the victims comes forward and says, ‘I’m being trafficked,’ he said, noting that the money is also a big factor as gangs can earn as much as $250,000 a year from a single victim. 

Coming forward can be incredibly difficult for many victims and survivors, who oftentimes do not even know they are being trafficked. The Pointer recently detailed the story of Cassandra Harvey, a human trafficking survivor who, for years, struggled with understanding what was happening to her after a relationship with an old friend transitioned into exploitation. 

“At the time I didn’t know I was being trafficked, I didn’t know that existed,” she previously told The Pointer. 

This lack of understanding about human trafficking is not unique. Studies have shown that a large proportion of Canadians feel they would not be able to identify the signs of the crime if it were happening in front of them. 

It isn’t just a knowledge problem however that creates this gap in reporting, very few survivors of trafficking want anything to do with law enforcement, or going to trial. 

“In the first year of operating the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline, out of all human trafficking cases we identified, only six percent wanted anything to do with law enforcement,” Julia Drydyk, the executive director of the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking told the Standing Committee on Justice Policy at Queen’s Park in August. “They often have had bad experiences with law enforcement in the past. They might have been coerced into crimes. They might have been told it’s their fault. They might be being lied to that they’re going to get in trouble. So really, we need to be focusing on stabilization, meeting basic needs and holistic support.”

Since 2013, the rate of human trafficking has generally been on the rise across Canada. While the country observed a slight decrease in 2023 to 570 incidents from 597 the year before, the upward trend is clear.

Over the last decade, many of Canada’s large cities and towns have seen the majority of human trafficking cases, 20 percent of the more than 4,500 incidents took place in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), which includes Brampton and Mississauga. It reinforces what has been known for some time, the Region of Peel and the GTA have become a hub for human trafficking.

Along with the Toronto CMA, Ottawa, Kingston, Belleville-Quinte West, Hamilton, St. Catharines-Niagara, Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Branford, Guelph, London, Windsor, Barrie and Greater Sudbury all had human trafficking rates above the national average over the last decade. Oftentimes the trafficking does not occur in just one city, but across multiple jurisdictions. On November 8th, the Peel Regional Police, in conjunction with police forces in Halton and Niagara arrested 37-year-old Marcus Moses for a litany of trafficking charges. It is alleged he trafficked two women in cities across the Greater Golden Horseshoe. He is only the latest example.

Despite the widespread misconception that this crime occurs in seedy motels and back alleys, the reality oftentimes is quite the opposite.

“A lot of the time my traffickers would bring me to locations in Niagara Falls or in Ottawa like the Delta and the Courtyard Marriott,” Harvey tells The Pointer, noting the area around the casinos in Niagara Falls was a place her traffickers focused on both for clientele, and potential marks for robberies. 

“You had a lot of like legal professionals, people in really high tech companies who would go there and then you would meet them in the casino or they would just go on websites like Leolist and then request your services,” Harvey states. “My traffickers would talk about those big places and fancy hotels because it's easier to rob people, especially at the casino. So when they would be drunk and then go to the room, a lot of them would have like thousands and thousands of dollars of cash on them so the business there was just better in general.”

Cassandra Harvey is a survivor of human trafficking now working to help others.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer Files) 

The traffickers over the last decade—82 percent of whom were men and boys—often get away with it as a result of a judicial system that struggles to find methods to prosecute these individuals that does not rely on the traumatized survivor getting on the stand to testify, something that can be incredibly difficult. 

Over half of the incidents from the last decade remain unsolved. When charges do end up in court, only about 10 percent of them result in a guilty verdict. Nearly 85 percent result in a stay, withdrawal or dismissal of the charge. 

“Unless you have someone that is on their way to healing and stabilization, the way our judicial system is set up, they will not be seen as a credible witness. There is a huge amount of bias that still exists within the judiciary,” Drydyk told MPPs in August. “We also know that the defence are brutal and that it’s a really re-traumatizing experience going through the courts. So unless those supports are there, and because we’re so reliant on victim testimony to see human trafficking convictions, you’re never going to incarcerate a trafficker unless they’re stable.”

The vast majority of perpetrators of human trafficking do not face repercussions for their actions which can create lifelong trauma for survivors.

(Statistics Canada) 

To stop more traffickers from walking free, Drydyk says new investigative tools, whether through the use of AI or improved relationships with large tech companies need to be forged. A key factor in successfully prosecuting a charge of human trafficking is proving that exploitation took place. Currently, too much reliance is placed on the testimony of victims and survivors to illustrate this. Drydyk says improved relationships with tech companies that could make it easier to access the electronic devices of traffickers could help to ease the burden falls onto vulnerable victims.

“What we actually need are better systems to be able to gain access to traffickers’ cellphones, to be able to obtain the text messages and the data that support the coercive element of trafficking and to be able to curate that into a way that will make sense to judges. Because right now, there is going to be so much data,” she says. “Being able to better access and curate digital and electronic evidence to support the narrative of how the relationship played out over the course of exploitation, we’re hearing, would be very helpful in prosecutions.”

Outside legislative changes needed within the criminal justice system, it’s clear the increase in trafficking cases has not been met with the necessary investments into social services to help the survivors who are able to escape.

In the first three years the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking operated the national hotline, identifying 2,170 individual victims, the most common service needed was shelter and emergency housing.

According to Drydyk, there simply just isn’t enough.

“Despite the fact that Ontario is, honestly, the leader in sustaining action against human trafficking in Canada, front-line agencies are still barely able to keep up with the demand for services. There is nothing worse than having to tell a survivor who has mustered the incredible courage to leave that after over a dozen call-outs to every single shelter that’s listed in our national referral directory, going through central intake and googling everything in a broader area, there’s not a single bed available for them and hearing that they’re just going to return to their trafficker because there is literally nowhere else to go,” she says. “Unfortunately, this is something that we hear far too often from people that call the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline.”

The Region of Peel has 10 shelter spaces dedicated to survivors of human trafficking. But this may not be enough. 

A report that went to Region of Peel council earlier this year noted that the Region’s integrated services hub for survivors of human trafficking has seen startling increases in those in need of assistance. 

The hub launched in March 2021, in its first year it assisted 63 victims. The following year that number increased 801 percent to 613 clients. Between 2023 and 2024 the number increased a further 116 percent to 1,323 survivors. 

The continuation of this vital program is reliant on provincial funding, and if it’s not renewed, a significant gap will open for survivors in one of the country’s human trafficking hot spots. 

Consistent, reliable funding is needed to assist the rising number of survivors, Drydyk told MPPs. 

“If governments continue to rely on short-term catch-all granting systems, it only continues to fuel the competition for very scarce resources amongst front-line agencies, and it also leaves almost nothing left over to focus on important work like prevention, service coordination and collaboration,” she said. “I have a vision where programs for survivors of sexual exploitation, abuse and gender-based violence are adequately funded so that no one who experiences this extreme form of trauma ever gets turned away.”

The Ontario PC government has pledged $20 million annually to fight human trafficking and enhance support services throughout Ontario. In addition, $7 million was allocated in 2019 to the Anti-Human Trafficking Community Supports Fund, which offers comprehensive services for survivors and improved protection for individuals at risk. The PCs also made efforts to tackle the vulnerability of Indigenous girls, who are often targeted by sex traffickers. The government allocated $3 million to the Anti-Human Trafficking Indigenous-led Initiatives Fund to create culturally appropriate services for at-risk Indigenous youth. An additional $2.9 million was earmarked for law enforcement initiatives aimed at improving investigations and enforcement actions against traffickers, while $4.8 million was set aside for victim support and the justice system, ensuring that survivors can access legal help, counseling, and various recovery services, according to the provincial government.

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