Fund Workshops to End Trafficking in Canada

Aura Freedom continues to build momentum in the fight to end human trafficking (HT) and gender-based violence (GBV) through targeted education, innovative campaigns, and advocacy rooted in community care. In the last few months, we’ve deepened our outreach, broadened our impact, and launched two major initiatives that address the root causes of trafficking while amplifying survivor-informed, prevention-first responses.

Disrupting the Tides Symposium: Building Capacity, Reimagining Prevention

This year, in honour of Canada’s National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, Aura Freedom hosted its first full-day Human Trafficking Knowledge-Sharing Symposium, Disrupting the Tides.

This milestone event convened frontline workers, survivors, educators, healthcare workers, first responders, advocates, and parents, and was intentionally designed to foster education, unlearning, and community connection.

Highlights included:

• Knowledge Sharing Sessions focusing on both downstream and upstream capacity-building, covering: Coercive Control, Best Practices for Supporting Survivors, Root Causes and Drivers of Exploitation and Violence, and an Introduction to Aura Freedom’s Guidelines on GBV In The Media.
• Expert Panel Discussions offering critical insights from diverse experts, with one panel focusing on downstream efforts and ways service providers can support survivors, and another focusing on upstream initiatives and approaches that drive systemic change.
•  Artistic Performances including both visual arts and musical arts, highlighting grassroots empowerment, activism through art, and platforming the voices of survivors. 
• A Community Resource Fair composed of community partners representing a number of services and supports, equipping attendees with vital tools, materials, and community connections. 

This groundbreaking event was rooted in our award-winning sex trafficking prevention training and built upon years of community consultation and survivor-informed research. Disrupting the Tides is a foundational step in Aura Freedom’s goal to transform  how we collectively understand and respond to human trafficking and sexual exploitation.  

Campaign Spotlight: Behind Closed Doors

In May, Aura Freedom launched its powerful new national campaign, Behind Closed Doors, spotlighting the pervasive and often invisible crisis of Intimate Partner and Familial Femicide in Canada.This event brought together survivors, experts, advocates, and community members to confront the emergency of femicide in Canada, and ignite vital conversations around prevention and systemic change.

Highlights from the day included: 

• The unveiling of our Behind Closed Doors campaign & pink door installation
• Meaningful networking, knowledge-sharing and resource offerings
• Discussions of femicide portrayals in the media and what needs to change
• The re-launch of our online femicide resource hub: aurafreedom.org/femicide
• A thought-provoking panel discussion with experts Jaspreet Gill from York Region Centre for Community Safety, Deepa Mattoo from Barbra Schlifer Clinic, and Colette Martin, Survivor Advocate and Educator, hosted and moderated by our Executive Director, Marissa Kokkoros and Senior Manager of Programs and Advocacy, Danielle Warren.

The Behind Closed Doors campaign is calling on advocates, survivors, and allies to tie a purple ribbon to their front doors at different times throughout 2025, which started off on May 24th, when the Behind Closed Doors installation appeared in Nathan Phillips Square during Doors Open Toronto. Similarly to how Doors Open gives the public access to spaces that aren’t usually accessible, the Behind Closed Doors campaign seeks to bring the violence that is happening in spaces we can’t see, to the forefront of conversations around men’s violence against women and femicide.

Media showed up to support amplification of this campaign launch, and were featured multiple times on CP24, with additional articles and interviews from CBC, and an article by Strategy Magazine. The Behind Closed Doors Campaign has also rolled out on various billboards, radio stations, and more.

Education, Workshops, and Community Trainings

In recent months, Aura Freedom facilitated a number of educational events and training sessions on human trafficking and GBV prevention, reaching over 700 community participants across various sectors.

These included:

• School-based education at TDSB’s Sex Trafficking Awareness Spring Summit
• A webinar for Ontario Association of Social Workers, training frontline workers on trafficking prevention
• A panel at the 2nd Global Conference on Sexual Health and Gender Equity, hosted by Hope for Refugees
• Featured speaker at the Third Annual Women Helping Women Convention, hosted by Women’s Advocacy and Outreach at the University of Toronto

Aura Freedom also continued distributing our GBV & Human Trafficking Educational Toolkits and brochures—sharing hundreds of educational resources to partners and community members, equipping them with crucial prevention education and resources.

Advocacy and Systemic Change

Aura Freedom continued to actively consult and advocate across multiple tables and working groups, including:

• TDSB’s Anti-Sex Trafficking Collaborative and YRDSB’s Anti-Sex Trafficking Community Partner Meetings
• Toronto Counter Human Trafficking Committee
• Lotus Health Advisory Committee at SickKids

• Toronto’s GBV/IPV Working Group

Our continued presence at these policy and practitioner tables ensures that prevention-first, survivor-informed, and intersectional approaches are embedded in future anti-trafficking strategies.

Thank you for continuing to support this critical work as we imagine and build a safer, more equitable future—together. For the last five months, Aura Freedom has strengthened its position as a key organization in preventing gender-based violence and human trafficking, collaborating across different sectors and grounding their work in community knowledge and the experiences of survivors. Moving through 2025, the organization will concentrate on broadening national education and training, expanding the "Behind Closed Doors" campaign, and making primary prevention a central part of all projects, partnerships, and policy efforts. Thank you for your ongoing support in creating a safer and more equitable future.

In solidarity,

Kritika Chopra

Administration & Fund Development Lead

Aura Freedom International

Links:

• Aura Freedom International May Newsletter