Canada not "TIP"ping the scales in data collection

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 000904 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR STEPHANIE KRONENBURG, G/TIP E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM PGOV KTIP KWMN CA SUBJECT: Canada not "TIP"ping the scales in data collection REF: OTTAWA 695; VANCOUVER 244; OTTAWA 285 ¶1. (U) PolMinCouns on November 23 chaired the monthly Reporting Officers' DVC, with a particular focus on trafficking in persons. He underscored the continued commitment of the new Administration to combating TIP, and highlighted the need to maintain a substantive reporting and outreach focus on this issue year-round, not only in the run-up to the annual report to Congress in the spring. He strongly encouraged active engagement with law enforcement officials as well as NGO, academics, legislators, and others. He asked that reporting officers, in their outreach, keep an eye out for TIP "heroes" whom we can nominate in our next report. He recalled last year's successful nomination of one of Vancouver's contacts, Professor Benjamin Perrin, whom G/TIP eventually selected as one of six worldwide heroes. He reminded reporting officers that having a Canadian hero helped to ensure vastly greater publicity here in Canada to the TIP report than is usually the case. He warned that Canada will again face a possibility that G/TIP will seek to downgrade Canada from Tier 1 to Tier 2, since it appears that there have been no additional TIP-related convictions in 2009. View From Ottawa ¶2. (SBU) Discussions with law enforcement personnel, legislators, advocacy groups, and academics in Ottawa have highlighted the lack of centralized data collection to estimate accurately the scale of international and domestic trafficking in Canada and track the government's efforts to combat it. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) point to the difficulty in gathering complete data encompassing all forms of trafficking from each of the provinces. NGOs do not use a consistent definition of a trafficked person in their data and legislators continue to rely on a RCMP report from ¶2005. According to the RCMP Human Trafficking National Coordination Centre (HTNCC),a new report with updated statistics is in progress with a tentatively planned release by end of year; however, contacts in the HTNCC shared doubts with poloff that the HTNCC would meet its deadline due to problems with the comprehensiveness of the data. According to HTNCC, there are 24 ongoing TIP cases in the Canadian judicial system and five convictions under trafficking charges. None of the five convictions are new to 2009 although the number of active TIP cases has doubled from 12 in 2008. ¶3. (SBU) Many NGOs and advocacy groups are drawing attention to the plight of aboriginal women and their vulnerability to trafficking. The Native Women's Association of Canada's (NWAC) Sisters in Spirit project addresses violence against aboriginal women with a focus on missing and murdered women and girls. The federal government awarded C$5 million ($4,750,000) in 2005 for five years (ref C) but has not as yet renewed its funding commitment after 2010. Addressing the need for basic data collection, NWAC developed a comprehensive database of case histories of missing and murdered aboriginal women which now includes 520 such cases. This database is unique as Canada's national statistics agency does not collect data on aboriginal victims or perpetrators of crimes against aboriginal victims due to concerns of racial profiling. NWAC has also directed the funding to education and awareness programs and improving access to the judicial system for victims. NWAC contacts indentified the challenge of encouraging prosecutors to lay trafficking charges and secure convictions as well as changing the consciousness of the police to take complaints from the aboriginal community seriously. NWAC is also seeking to expand the definition of trafficking beyond prostitution to other forms of exploitation including the use of aboriginal women as involuntary drug mules. According to NWAC, without a continued funding commitment by the government, it will be unable to continue these programs. TIP hotspots ¶4. (SBU) Consulate General Vancouver reported that they remain in "waiting mode" in developments in a slavery case under investigation in Vancouver. If the RCMP successfully lays trafficking charges in this domestic servitude case, it would be OTTAWA 00000904 002 OF 002 the first slavery case in Canada (ref A). However, the recent arrival of 76 undocumented Tamils (ref B) has pulled the resources of the same RCMP division investigating the slavery case. Contacts have assured ConGen Vancouver that an arrest is "imminent" and that they have a crown counsel who is interested in seeking trafficking charges. 2009 TIP Hero Benjamin Perrin will be publishing a book in early 2010 based on several years of research into domestic and international trafficking in Canada. Perrin has stated that he has collected significant amounts of data in his research which forms the basis of the book. ConGen Vancouver is also monitoring new RCMP efforts to resolve the high rate of disappearance of aboriginal women along the Highway of Tears in northern British Columbia. The RCMP is unsure if the women have been trafficked, murdered, or run away but new media attention has focused the public's attention on the unsolved cases of more than 30 women who have gone missing along Route 16 in the past two decades. The RCMP and NGOs disagree on the likelihood of increased trafficking activity during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. While the Salvation Army is planning to open a new shelter in December to address this problem directly, the RCMP explained that TIP would be a lower priority for law enforcement during the Olympics compared to overall security issues. The RCMP believes that as a family-oriented event, the Winter Olympics are not comparable to other international sports events such as the World Cup which attract a high number of males attending without their families. ¶5. (SBU) Consulate General Toronto reported that while they have noted a "huge" appetite among law enforcement in increased training and awareness in TIP, it has not been matched by an equal interest from policy makers. Problems facing the "caregiver program" in which immigrants receive work permits for domestic jobs caring for children or the elderly are an example of how the lack of data collection can give a misleading picture. Philipino caregivers have publicly voiced complaints recently that should signal possible trafficking activity including harsh working conditions, low or no pay, and an inability to travel freely. However, policy makers have labeled the issue as a labor contracts problem and emphasize the benefits of the caregiver program as part of Canada's welcoming immigration policy - not as a potential source of TIP activity. Perspectives from other posts ¶6. (U) Consulate General Quebec City reported that neither the law enforcement community nor the human rights commission has identified trafficking as a particular concern in the area. APP Winnipeg noted growing public concern in Manitoba over the dozens of missing aboriginal women. At an aboriginal conference earlier this year on TIP (ref C),there was unanimous concern among NGOs and law enforcement on the need to address this issue and discover why so many aboriginal women have disappeared with little effort to solve the individual cases. Consulate General Halifax will follow up with contacts in the Canadian Border Services Agency on the high profile case of seven stowaways who were discovered in the spring. Consulate General Montreal is now fully staffed in the political section and beginning substantive inquiries into TIP activity in their district. JACOBSON