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Canada is an "international embarrassment" when it comes to combatting modern-day sexual slavery, a damning new report finds.
The study on human trafficking by the Future Group, a non-governmental organization, ranked eight industrialized nations and gave Canada an F for its "abysmal" record treating victims. The only other country to flunk was the U.K., which received a D, while the U.S. got a B+ and Australia, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Italy all received grades of B or B-.
"Canada's record of dealing with trafficking victims is an international embarrassment and contrary to best practices," the report concludes. "Canada has ignored calls for reform and continues to re-traumatize trafficking victims, with few exceptions, by subjecting them to routine deportation and fails to provide even basic support services."
The report's main author, Benjamin Perrin, said victims of trafficking are often left in "legal limbo" after they're rescued and left without government-funded medical, psychological or counselling support.
"People have been threatened and told that if they co-operate with law enforcement their families back home will be killed," he said. "What Canada has typically done is detain these victims without medical care, then deport them. It's a practice that we've seen in some authoritarian and despotic countries and it has no place in a civilized, just society like our own."
The report blasts former Liberal cabinet ministers Irwin Cotler, Joe Volpe and Pierre Pettigrew for "passing the buck" during the course of the study.
Conservative Citizenship and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg was disturbed by the report's findings and instructed his officials provide options to address problems.
"It's very damning, and if there are obvious legislative or regulatory fixes that need to be done, those have to become priorities, given especially that we're talking about very vulnerable people," he told Sun Media.
Cotler, a former justice minister, said tackling human trafficking was an issue of personal importance to him, and noted that one of the final acts of the last Parliament was to enact measures to protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.
"If we can learn from this report we should, because this is an international scourge," he said. "I think the record we initiated was one that now has to be implemented."
The study on human trafficking by the Future Group, a non-governmental organization, ranked eight industrialized nations and gave Canada an F for its "abysmal" record treating victims. The only other country to flunk was the U.K., which received a D, while the U.S. got a B+ and Australia, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Italy all received grades of B or B-.
"Canada's record of dealing with trafficking victims is an international embarrassment and contrary to best practices," the report concludes. "Canada has ignored calls for reform and continues to re-traumatize trafficking victims, with few exceptions, by subjecting them to routine deportation and fails to provide even basic support services."
The report's main author, Benjamin Perrin, said victims of trafficking are often left in "legal limbo" after they're rescued and left without government-funded medical, psychological or counselling support.
"People have been threatened and told that if they co-operate with law enforcement their families back home will be killed," he said. "What Canada has typically done is detain these victims without medical care, then deport them. It's a practice that we've seen in some authoritarian and despotic countries and it has no place in a civilized, just society like our own."
The report blasts former Liberal cabinet ministers Irwin Cotler, Joe Volpe and Pierre Pettigrew for "passing the buck" during the course of the study.
Conservative Citizenship and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg was disturbed by the report's findings and instructed his officials provide options to address problems.
"It's very damning, and if there are obvious legislative or regulatory fixes that need to be done, those have to become priorities, given especially that we're talking about very vulnerable people," he told Sun Media.
Cotler, a former justice minister, said tackling human trafficking was an issue of personal importance to him, and noted that one of the final acts of the last Parliament was to enact measures to protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.
"If we can learn from this report we should, because this is an international scourge," he said. "I think the record we initiated was one that now has to be implemented."
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