Fund Workshops to End Trafficking in Canada

Your support has enabled us to continue our work to eradicate one of the fastest growing crimes worldwide: human trafficking. 

But, importantly, human trafficking is not simply a crime, it is a human rights abuse that is happening here in Canada at crisis rates. 

Contrary to general perception, human trafficking is alive and well in Canada - with most reported cases falling under sex trafficking and sexual exploitation.

93% of sex trafficking survivors in Canada are Canadian.

97% of survivors are are women and girls.

92% of victims knew their trafficker beforehand.

1 IN 4 of Canadian sex trafficking victims are children and youth UNDER 18 years old.

This number is growing: online sexual offences against children have increased 217% since 2014.

This is why your support has been so pivotal. Your donations and support is not simply a financial contribution - it’s a powerful statement of solidarity with survivors, and a commitment to end this gender-based crisis. 

We believe that the community must be deeply aware of the crisis of human trafficking in Canada before we can eradicate it together. This is why, through your generous support, we have been able to continue sharing our decade-plus experience in human trafficking advocacy and awareness, education, training, research, policy change and survivor support with our communities. 

This includes acting as a panelist at various community partner events such as FCJ Refugee Centre's event, "Buildig Safety & Support: A Survivor-Led Approach to Gender-Based Violence & Human Trafficking" and Hope4Refugee's "Global Conference on Sexual Health, Reproductive Rights, and Gender Equity in Humanitarian Crisis". 

Further, we have brought our frontline training to social services in the community where women and girls are disproportionately at risk of human trafficking, such as womens shelters like Women's Habitat and Sakeenah Canada. 

We also ensured we brought our resources, tools, and service knowledge to the public through community events such as the 2nd Annual Anti-Human Trafficking Conference hosted by Anti-Human Traffickng York Region, and another Human Trafficking Awareness Event in York Region hosted by the York Region community. This allowed us to connect with community members, parents, youth, and local organizations to increase human trafficking awareness and prevention knowledge and tools directly to the communtiy themselves.

Lastly, we know that to prevent and end human trafficking in Canada, we must advocate for government-level change both locally and nationally. Locally, Aura Freeedom consulted staff from the City of Toronto on strategies to address the need and support of survivors of human trafficking. We continue to inform the City's anti-trafficking efforts through End Trafficking TO to inform the city on how we can better address sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. At the National level, we collaborated with other community partners to send an Open Letter to Canadian leadership regarding the renewal of Canada’s National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking to ensure that efforts to prevent and eradicate human trafficking and support survivors do not disappear with the Strategy that is set to expire this year.