OTTAWA - It is one thing to set victims of human trafficking free but quite another to get them started on a new life.
“They believe they are good for nothing,” said Conservative MP Joy Smith. “This is so wrong. It breaks my heart. A lot of these girls were lost and had no support to get back on their feet.”
With that in mind Smith has launched a foundation to invite the public to participate in the fight against human trafficking.
The Joy Smith Foundation is a registered, non-profit organization where “every red cent goes to the victims and the NGOs that take care of them,” Smith said.
The foundation is a follow-up to the federal government’s National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking announced in June 2012. Non-political and non-partisan, the foundation is all about the victims,, Smith said.
Victims are “so traumatized they need support” to “start their lives again,” she said. They “need a vision” to rebuild their lives.
“I’m trying to be a role model for the public to show them what they can do,” Smith said. The money goes to the victims to provide rehabilitation to prepare them for a new life outside the sex trade; for clothing, counselling, housing, and money, “all those important everyday things.”
She recalled the court testimony of one trafficking victim who said she felt “good for nothing except giving sex to men.”
The foundation’s other component is building awareness of the plight of trafficking victims and the “unsung heroes” among police officers who rescue them and the NGOs that look after them, Smith said. “These people need to be thanked.”
Smith said people do not realize how hard it is to work in the human trafficking field and the kinds of blocks one runs into, from “judicial blocks” to the blocks from one’s peers in the police force. The work can be discouraging and depressing because the damage to trafficked women and children is so horrible, she said.
“It’s all about love, your love for girls and a desire to give them a fresh start,” she said.
Smith is the first MP in Canadian history to cause amendments to the Criminal Code twice through private member’s bills. Bill C-310 added a mandatory five-year sentence to those convicted of trafficking children under 18, and C-268 made human trafficking an extra-territorial offence, allowing prosecution of Canadian citizens or residents for trafficking crimes committed in other countries.
More information about the foundation can be found at www.joysmithfoundation.com