Human trafficking prosecutor expects more victims to come forward if they see help is available

A Nova Scotia lawyer who prosecutes human trafficking offencesexpects aheavier workload in the years ahead asmore survivors come forward.

Nova Scotia already has the highest rateof human trafficking in the country, but advocates say that only accounts for a fraction of the problem given many young people who've beenlured into the commercial sex trade don't report it.

"I think there's still this image of human trafficking looking like a Liam Neeson movie, that movie Taken where young women are being snatched off the street and it's very different from that,"senior Crownattorney Josie McKinney told CBC Radio's MainstreetHalifax.

"It's a much longer, I would call it, a seductive process that's committed by traffickers and it can literally happen to anyone."

She was hired in 2020 to be the province's first Crown attorney dedicated to human trafficking. Earlier this year, shewas joined by prosecutor Alicia Kennedy, which broughtthe team to four people, includingtwo administrative staff.

McKinney said in the last few years, more Nova Scotians are paying attention to the issue, but more still needs to be done to recognize the role of systemic discrimination against Indigenous people and African Nova Scotians.

"Those communities are actually over-represented as victims because we as a society have marginalized those communities," she said.

McKinney's conversation with Mainstreet host Jeff Douglas has been condensed and edited for clarity.

You can listen to the full interview here:

I assume that the creation of these roles is an indication of just how serious this issue is and how serious the government is about combating it?

Yes, absolutely. My role was created about two years ago ...and that was shortly after the last set of statistics were released showing that Nova Scotia has the highest rate of human trafficking. Although our numbers are close to Toronto in Halifax, Halifax actually has a higher rate. So on a per capita basis, human trafficking has much more of a presence inNova Scotia than it does in other places.

Do we know why that is?

It's certainly for a number of different reasons. It's important to recognize that those numbers are not just a reflection of the criminal offence of human trafficking, but also for human trafficking offences under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Those are charges that are handled by federal prosecutors and they are very much connected to immigration. So as a port city, that certainly explains part of that.

But we also know that Halifax and Nova Scotia is a corridor where victims of human trafficking are transported from our province on to New Brunswick, and then to other provinces known as the circuit. So certainly, you know, for a number of different reasons we are finding our people being moved out of province.

Can you describe the job a little bit, Josie, what it means to be a prosecutor dedicated to human trafficking?

I sort of look at it as having three main components. The first component being the handling of prosecuting those offences of human trafficking and human trafficking related. When I say human trafficking related or adjacent, I'm talking about offences that haven't quite gotten to human trafficking but are clearly leading in that direction, or offences committed against independent sex workers that require that sort of specialized understanding of that world.

We're handling those files across the entire province of Nova Scotia and they're very complex investigations.- Josie McKinney, senior Crown attorney

So we're handling those files across the entire province of Nova Scotia and they're very complex investigations, large-scale investigations. And then the second component is the relationship-building. It's very important for us to build that relationship with partners who are also trying to address human trafficking, understand what all of our different rolesare to make sure that we're collaborating where possible.

And then the third part of that is training. We, as specialized Crowns, we're expected to train other Crown attorneys, police, community partners, other justice partners and then also to receive that training on an ongoing basis to make sure that we're on top of this issue in terms of any new developments.

It's a big job.

It's a huge job, which is why I was very excited that the government expanded to a second Crown attorney as well as two admin support staff. We're now a team of four, which is very much a reflection of the workload and how it's just going to continue to grow.

Is fourenough?

At this time, yes. But as we all get better at what we're doing, not just the Crown but also police and victim services, community partners, our transition houses, as all of us get better at this job, we're going to see reporting increase because the numbers are only reflecting those who have reported. There's so many more who haven't yet felt like they could report. But as we do better at supporting them, we are going to see those numbers increase and all of us are going to need more resources, not just the prosecution service.

What has changed since you began the job?

I would say the collaboration has changed significantly. I've always seen myself in terms of how I practice law as being very collaborative with community, and that collaboration was already happening before we had this position. So it was natural to join in on that. We're now, instead of operating in silos, I would say Nova Scotia is really becoming a leader nationally on the degree to which we all come to the table across disciplines to share what we know and figure outhow can we work together to address this?