Alberta invests $4M over 2 years to fight human trafficking

The Alberta government is providing $4 million over two years and partnering with community groups to create an office to combat human trafficking.

Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis says the Alberta Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons is to provide support to those victimized by human trafficking while raising public awareness of the problem.

“Often times this isn’t an issue that is thought about in places like Alberta, but we need to understand that trafficking happens, and it happens right here, and in many forms, this is a real issue, and we need to do our part to disrupt it in fact, stop it,” Ellis said at a news conference in Calgary.

The province says the office will involve multiple areas, such as sex trafficking, labour trafficking and the trafficking of organs.

From 2011 to 2021, there have been more than 3,500 cases of human trafficking reported across Canada, with the majority of victims being women and girls — one-quarter of them under the age of 18.

Meanwhile, it says Indigenous women and girls are the most affected.

Survivor of human trafficking shares story

Aprileve Wiverg is a survivor of human trafficking. She freed herself seventeen years ago from sexual exploitation.

Like her, thousands of women and children are being traded every day.

“When I was nineteen, I ended up in Saskatoon where I was targeted and groomed and then brought into the world of prostitution,” she told reporters.

Wiverg spent a decade of her life being sold across cities in western Canada and the United States.

Aprileve Wiverg speaks with CityNews in Calgary on Friday, July 28, 2023. (Silvia Naranjo, CityNews image)

It was in New York City where Wiverg was sold by a crime ring until a friend saved her with a one-way ticket back to Canada. Since then, she has been a grass roots advocate for missing, murdered and exploited indigenous people.

“Actually, it started for me in a nightclub. So I was approached by another young woman my age. I had found out later that she had been exploited and groomed at the age of 16,” she explained.

“When we met, we were both about the age of 19, so quite often, people think there is so much mess involved in human trafficking for the purpose of human exploitation, sometimes it is a friend, sometimes it is your boyfriend, sometimes it’s a family member.”

The government is partnering with #NotInMyCity, Native Counselling Services of Alberta (NCSA), and REACH Edmonton Council for Safer Communities.

“Our goal is to create a hybrid model that extends across the province, disrupting and dissolving trafficking networks while helping survivors to recover and rebuild,” said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in a news conference.

Calgarian country singer and Founder of #NotInMyCity, Paul Brant, is leading the charge.

His foundation was formed in 2017, and it supports, facilitates and advocates for the “development and mobilization of a strategic, integrated plan to bring about transformational and sustainable change at the grassroots, practice, policy and legislative levels.”

Country singer Paul Brandt speaks with CityNews in Calgary on Friday, July 28, 2023. (Silvia Naranjo, CityNews image)

“Six years ago, when we started this, not many recognized the signs of human trafficking. Now here we are with $22 million for the next three years,” he said.

In the meantime, the province says the office will share updates in the coming months.

More information on the province’s human trafficking action plan can be found online.