The Government of Alberta is implementing a nine-point Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking to protect at-risk individuals from being trafficked in Alberta, empower survivors of trafficking, and provide new remedies to deal with traffickers.
Human trafficking is a serious crime that takes three forms: sexual exploitation, forced labour trafficking, and trafficking in human organs or tissues. Traffickers exploit people of all ages, ethnicities and genders, forcing their victims to provide labour or sexual services against their will and using threats of violence to trap them in a cycle of exploitation.
Key actions
The nine-point Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking will:
- adopt the “2002 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons” (Palermo Protocol) definition of human trafficking
- create a provincial Human Trafficking Task Force which will bring together representatives of relevant ministries, agencies, police services, and community groups to share information and coordinate action on an ongoing basis
- increase efforts to educate the public, particularly vulnerable groups, about the reality of human trafficking, and report tips to the new National Human Trafficking Hotline
- ensure appropriate training for judges, prosecutors and first responders, including police officers, nurses and doctors
- ensure the Ministry of Labour provides information to Temporary Foreign Workers in Alberta about their rights under Canadian law
- work with community groups, other provinces and the federal government to collect and share better data on human trafficking, and to ensure coordinated action as part of the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking
- name and shame traffickers by publishing the names of businesses found to have knowingly facilitated human trafficking
- lobby the federal government to strengthen penalties against human traffickers by bringing Bill C-452 into force
- Introduce legislation to establish a process for restraining orders, torts and proclaim a Human Trafficking Awareness Day.
Source: Government of Alberta
Community Initiatives
Blood Tribe police (March 2022) announce plans to have a human trafficking outreach program by fall 2022. Read more