In 2006, we found very few resources to help field workers, such as police officers and shelter operators, combat trafficking in Canada and decided to take action. Federal policies and media exposure have since brought greater attention to the issue, yet there remains a need for a web site dedicated to ongoing coverage of significant depth.
Through this site, we hope to inform people about news and current events as well as larger issues and themes on the topic of human trafficking in Canada.
Board of Directors
Bianca Baldo (B.A. in International Development and L.L.L. in Civil Law) has been active in the promotion of women and children’s human rights since 1996. While studying at Trent University, she participated in a year exchange program in Ecuador working with women and children’s human rights and in particular with La Sala, a sex worker’s rights organization in Machala. Under the guidance of Anna Maria Carrion, a human rights lawyer in Ecuador, she decided to continue her studies at the University of Ottawa, in the Civil Law Faculty. During her studies, Bianca participated in a yearlong legal internship with the Canadian Red Cross, specifically examining the issue of humanitarian law and the application of the Geneva Convention in the Canadian context. Upon completing her law degree, Bianca spent a year in Vietnam working with Oxfam-Quebec’s Anti Human-Trafficking Program. This primarily involved working directly with trafficked victims and affected communities to offer economic capacity building and trafficking prevention activities. Moreover, she had the opportunity to work in both Vietnam and Cambodia in gender equality and gender mainstreaming with the Anti Human-Trafficking partners. She is presently completing her Quebec Civil Bar and is working as the international communications officer with HumanTrafficking.ca.
Rika Chitose is a co-founder of www.humantrafficking.ca. She is a graduate student at the University of Ottawa where she is working on her master’s thesis on Canadian services and policies for victims of human trafficking. Rika holds a B.A. in criminology from St. Thomas University, Fredericton, N.B.
Rika has been interested in victimology since 2003. She volunteered at the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime from 2005 to 2006 and is also a member of the World Society of Victimology.
Rika has been a great source of information for www.humantrafficking.ca through her own research, as well as through electronic correspondence and meetings with international agencies, and others researching human trafficking.
Stacey Douglas is co-founder of www.humantrafficking.ca and a PhD (History)/LLB/BCL candidate at McGill University. She became interested in human trafficking through research on its long history and especially the League of Nation's reaction to 'white slavery' at the beginning of the twentieth century.
In general, Stacey's research focuses on the intersection of gender and conflict in Canadian and international history. Stacey has worked as an intern and a web designer for the Atlantic Council of Canada and a reservist in the Canadian Forces. She is bilingual and has degrees in War Studies (MA, Royal Military College), Mechanical Engineering (BSc, Queen's University) and Political Studies (BA, Queen's University).
Christine Gervais holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Carleton University where she received a fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for a study on the governance of crime through prevention in late twentieth century Canada. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Dr.
Gervais' teaching and research areas include human rights violations, repressive legislation and crimes by the state, abuses of torture and rape during war and dictatorships, international development and education, human trafficking, crime prevention, as well as women's participation in peace-building, human rights and social justice initiatives. She is the principal author of a research report on the prevention of human trafficking funded by Canada's National Crime Prevention Centre. She works extensively with marginalized populations in Latin America and the Caribbean in the areas of development, education and human rights. She is currently investigating women's experiences of, and resistance to violence during
conflict in Honduras, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.
Dr. Jacqueline Oxman-Martinez has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Université de Montréal (1986) and is currently a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Research on Violence against Women in the Université de Montréal, continuing her functions as an Associate Professor at that same Institution.
Her research focuses on the intersections and disparities of gender, ethnicity and culture, mainly with regards to violence against women and children and the impacts that precarious immigration status can have on health. Trafficked women and children are of particular concern for Dr. Oxman-Martinez.
Dr. Oxman-Martinez holds several grants (CIHR, FQRSC, SSHRC) and her research projects and recent publications reflect a variety of academic, practice, and policy-oriented partnerships. Collaboration with researchers in the Universities of Dalhousie, Ottawa, Alberta and Toronto among others, and several federal and regional government agencies, as well as a series of community engagements, have all contributed to Dr. Oxman-Martinez’ recent work.
Volunteer Opportunities
All volunteers must have excellent communications and interpersonal skills, basic knowledge of the issues surrounding human trafficking in Canada and a strong desire to help the victims. Please send your resume and cover letter to info@humantrafficking.ca.
- Translations Co-ordinator:
-The volunteer co-ordinator will co-ordinate translations for the web site and find translators to help victims across Canada;
-The successful candidate will have experience co-ordinating large-scale volunteer efforts.
- Volunteers will help create workshops, keep up-to-date with publications and edit or write articles for our web site;
-Researchers will have experience studying and writing on human trafficking or related issues.
-The designer will keep the web site's pages up-to-date;
-She/he will have experience in text- and graphics-based sites as shown by her/his portfolio.
-The developer will organize and publish the names and details of shelters, police contacts and medical centres;
-The successful candidate will have experience organizing html- and php-based databases and programs.
