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The Ontario government has announced it will instate a new strategy in June to deal with the issue of human trafficking in the province, stating that its proposed initiative is not focused solely on Canada’s indigenous women, but recognizes that the problem “overwhelmingly” affects indigenous women.

Back in December, a report by the provincial legislative committee found that Ontario had become a “major hub” for human trafficking and sexual violence.

The committee implored the newly elected Liberal government to increase funding and expand efforts to protect the majority local underage girls and women victims through the justice system.

Ontario’s newly announced strategy is the culmination of calls for a province-wide strategy to combat sexually exploitative human trafficking, the most common form of trafficking in Canada according to the report.

“We need to send resources to law enforcement and to the justice system so there is a concentrated team that works throughout the province, because these girls are trafficked widely throughout the province on a daily basis,” member of the committee and Progressive Conservative MPP Laurie Scott said when the report first came out.

“These young women, girls really, underaged girls and children, are being forced into sex work in our cities and towns, and they really are the girls next door,” added Scott.

While the increased efforts are absolutely necessary, the Ontario Native Women’s Association says the government is obliged to increase their “indigenous specific” anti-trafficking strategy, as aboriginal women are overrepresented in the statistics of human-trafficking victims. ONWA has called on the Liberal government to create a specific task-force and grant additional funds to groups working on the front-lines with affected indigenous women.

Social factors like poverty, addiction, racism, colonialism, the over-representation of aboriginals in the child-welfare system and childhood sexual abuse are aggravating factors in aboriginal communities and the ONWA report worries that the “normalization” of sexual violence is a real possibility.

ONWA interim executive director Cora-Lee McGuire-Cyrette cites these social factors as well as the overrepresentation of aboriginal women in trafficking statistics as reason it is incumbent upon the government to develop an aboriginal-specific strategy.

McGuire-Cyrette relates a call from victims to institute “gender-specific cultural programming” in order to aid women in avoidance of and escape from traffickers.

"We’re failing the women who are working the streets tonight,” she said. “We can’t wait any longer. Our women are dying on the streets while we sit and try to figure out this issue.”

A months-long investigation by Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail found front-line agency after agency reporting high percentages of aboriginal girl and women trafficking victims, despite lower population percentages.

It is clearly endemic to aboriginal communities, and the government must act to strengthen protections.

And despite the increased research and spotlight on an issue that is consistently under-reported, the ONWA report calls provincial and national sex-trafficking data “fragmented.” The report cites the U.S. State Department’s calls for Canada to improve its data collection on sex-trafficking.