Staff report raises questions about city practice of advertising in publications with escort ads.
The City of Toronto is considering joining the war on human trafficking, but it probably won’t stop advertising in publications with escort ads. In a report before Mayor Rob Ford’s executive committee next week, city staff note that Toronto is the Canadian hot spot for the vile crime.They recommend that Toronto start collaborating with groups and committees who are trying to stamp out forced sex work and other forms of exploitation. The city would also work with other levels of government and Toronto police to “design a training program to inform, educate and train city staff regarding human trafficking.” Finally, data would be collected “about trafficked persons, success stories, and charged and convicted traffickers to benchmark and monitor the trends in Toronto.” The report notes the city advertises in “a number” of online and print publications that may contribute to human trafficking by running escort ads, which police and others say “may be used to market trafficked persons to prospective customers.”
However, staff recommended the city not yank those ads unless it does a thorough review to determine if the publications are, in fact, contributing to the problem. Toronto police say most human-trafficking victims here are girls and women forced into various forms of prostitution. Statistics Canada figures show that, of the 77 people charged in Canada with human trafficking between 2006 and 2011, 34 — almost half — were in Toronto. Three-quarters of convictions for the crime were in Southern Ontario and 62.5 per cent in the GTA, the report states.
Read city report here
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