Canadian policy combating human trafficking

Abstract

Human trafficking is a global issue and a grave violation of human rights. This thesis sets out to investigate how successful Canada has been up to date in combating the crime. Canada’s main developments in anti-trafficking have been established in the past three years and literature is lacking on these recent efforts. This thesis intends to fill this gap in literature with an analysis on current Canadian anti-trafficking legislation. The extent of success will be determined by two dynamics. The first dynamic of success is the ability of Canadian legislation to appropriately balance a security and humanitarian approach to tackling human trafficking issues. The second dynamic is examining the fulfillment of commitments to the UN Trafficking Protocol demonstrated by Canada’s anti-trafficking efforts. After much research, it has been determined that Canada has contributed a great deal to the anti-trafficking fight in the past three years and with a few improvements to existing legislation, will become successful in combating human trafficking at home and contributing to the fight internationally.