Human Trafficking Awareness Event Sheds Light on Dark Issue

Beacon Bags, in partnership with Cornwall Police Services and Victim Services, held an information session at Cornwall Pentecostal Church on human trafficking in Ontario. The event was open to the public and livestreamed on the Beacon Bags Facebook page.

Human trafficking is a crime where traffickers exploit and profit from adults and children by coercing them to perform labor or engage in commercial sex. While the session was focused mostly on sex trafficking, that and other forms of trafficking are going on in our own backyards.

Present to give information and context on the status of human trafficking in Cornwall and SDG were CPS' Constable Stephanie Casselman and Victim Services' Anik Brisbois, Supervisor of Client Services.

Constable Casselman has been with the Cornwall Police Service for 18 years, targeting human trafficking for three of those years. CPS and Victim Services work closely together to identify victims of human trafficking, helping them re-gain their freedom and heal from the trauma that they have experienced.

In the last three years, Constable Casselman, CPS, and Victim Services have helped over 130 girls and women who were victims of human trafficking.

Constable Casselman shared the story of one girl as an example of why she is so passionate about her work and never shuts off her phone. She knew this girl was a fighter, but it took five incidences to get her out of ‘the game'.

“I met her, she got back in the game. She contacted me again, ‘I need out.' Okay. A week later she was back in the game. Anyways, the fifth time was on my birthday. She called me and said, ‘I'm in the basement. I need help. They've got guns. I need to get out.' … I said, ‘Get out, I have somebody who is going to show up in an unmarked and I'll meet you at the station.' Met her at the station and she has been clean since. It's been two years. She's living an amazing life; she has a little one and I absolutely love her,” said Constable Casselman.

When people think of human trafficking, they often thing of organized crime groups operating underground, out of sight. In reality, a lot of trafficking goes on in hotels, motels, condos, and houses. Traffickers can be family members, smaller groups, or even opportunistic individuals.

“This is where we are seeing a lot of it. We see the individual who wants to make a lot of money, and this is the easy way. The drug dealers can sell the drugs, but they can only sell them once … when they have the girls, they can sell them over and over again,” explained Constable Casselman.

“We actually had a brothel here in town, so we worked jointly with Toronto police. What happened is they had a brothel in Toronto and a brothel here,” said Constable Casselman, “And then we also had a type of slavery where people were promised to work in Toronto, and they were brought to Cornwall … There were about 20 people living in a one-bedroom house and working on Tenth Street [as cleaners].”

Denise March, Founder of Beacon Bags, started giving out bags with essentials to human trafficking victims in 2016. In 2020, Beacon Bags became a registered charity and now has a board, committee, and prayer team supporting its operations. In addition to supporting victims, Beacon Bags now travels around Ontario educating the public on this very real threat.

For more information on human trafficking, including signs to look for, visit https://www.canadiancentretoendhumantrafficking.ca/.