Human trafficking brings to mind stark images of dingy brothels, women in the grip of addiction and children stripped of their innocence much too soon.

Many Canadians assume human trafficking is a foreign problem that happens in developing nations.

Wrong.

Human sex trafficking is happening right here in Vancouver.

Janneke Lewis, a North Vancouver lawyer, has been working on raising awareness on human sex trafficking for years.

"In the beginning it was so much more comfortable to look at India and Cambodia and Thailand," Lewis said. "That is them and not us -- but it is us. It is happening right here."

Lewis was born in South Africa. She immigrated to Canada in 1991, and was called to the British Columbia bar in 1996.

As a child abuse prosecutor in South Africa, Lewis dealt with child sex rings, but she said people were not conscious of the concept of sexual trafficking.

"When I started working in 2005 on human trafficking it sort of all pieced together," Lewis said. "Obviously human trafficking has been around for a long time, we just used to call it something different."

Lewis is a member of the Soroptimist Foundation, an organization of professional women around the world whose mandate is to improve the lives of women and girls.

At a conference with Soroptimist in Australia in 2004, Lewis was invited to attend a United Nations Congress in Bangkok, Thailand.

"At that point it was quite a new topic for everybody. It was a bit of a case of 'among the blind the one-eyed is king'," Lewis said about the 2005 UN conference. "I knew a little bit more than people around me knew and (afterwards) I kept getting invited to different UN conferences because I had been a presenter. Then I started giving different talks around the city to different organizations."

As Lewis became more engrossed in the topic she began to become increasingly aware of the presence of sex trafficking within Canada.

It's happening in our own backyard

Canada is recognized in the annual trafficking report by the U.S. State Department as a destination country for human trafficking, a source country for sexual exploitation and forced labour, and a transit country for transporting trafficking victims into the United States.

Norm Massie is a member of the RCMP border integrity division in Vancouver, which handles human trafficking cases. He said identifying human trafficking is not easy.

"It is such an underground type of criminality," Massie said. "Identifying a human trafficking situation or case was, and continues to be, very difficult."

The RCMP estimate there are 800 to 1,200 people trafficked in Canada each year, but because victims are usually unable to speak up, these numbers may be a gross underestimate.

Although accurate statistics are difficult to pinpoint, the fact trafficking is happening within Canadian borders cannot be disputed.

Massie said there are 31 domestic cases, and one international human trafficking case currently before the courts in Canada.

In British Columbia the Crown is currently pursuing charges in two cases.

A double-edged sword

Massie said there are two sides to trafficking within Canada:- domestic and international.

Women who are being trafficked into Canada internationally, mostly from South Asia and Eastern Europe, face language and cultural barriers that often prevent them from coming forward.

"Oftentimes in the countries that the trafficking victims are coming from, there is a real lack of trust in police," Massie said. "Usually they very much fear any dealings with police. Fear is the biggest element that prevents them from coming forward with their situation."

Massie said that with domestic trafficking it is difficult to track movement between provinces.

"People that are preyed on (in Canada) are people in financial distress for one reason or another," Massie said. "There are kinds of tactics used for the traffickers to gain the trust, and once the trust is gained the exploitation follows."

There is no evidence that Canadian parents are selling their children, as is seen in developing nations, instead kids are lured from their homes with a promise of a better life. Pledges of love and threats of violence towards the victim and their families may also be used.

The U.S. State Department trafficking report says aboriginal women are among the most vulnerable Canadian women.

According to the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada's 2008 intelligence brief on human trafficking, "The estimated individual daily profits from forced prostitution in Canada can range from several hundred (dollars) to over $1,000. . . . All of these profits are confiscated by the criminal network in exchange for clothing, food and lodging."

Organized criminal groups are often the facilitators of trafficking in Canada.

According to the same intelligence brief, Canadian girls as young as 11 are being subjected to sexual exploitation. The report says most Canadian girls who are exploited fall between the ages of 12 to 25.

"I am not saying in all cases, but a lot of cases there are drugs involved," Lewis said. "Especially in what they call the 'kiddie stroll areas,' the young girls that are being lured into and being prostituted. In order for them to cope with that, they end up being drugged or being hooked on drugs, so they have to pay for the drugs, and they end up becoming dependent on the pimp."

In chains

One of the controversial issues surrounding sex trafficking in Canada is developing a clear distinction between willing participation in the sex industry, and forced participation.

Massie and Lewis both indicated the distinction lies in coercion.

Lewis believes one of the problems is the public is only hearing from women who choose to sell themselves, because trafficked women are imprisoned and unable to have a voice.

"It is a very controversial subject," Lewis said. "I think that there are people that sell themselves for sex, which is prostitution without being trafficked. I think they are in the minority. The average person, lets call them prostituted people, are trafficked."

Lewis believes the best solution is to not legalize prostitution, but to criminalize the purchasing of sex.

Sweden is an example of a country that followed this model. Lewis believes this is a model Canada should follow and she has launched a petition to encourage the government to act.

She believes part of the problem is that victims of sexual slavery are afraid to speak out because they are afraid to be labelled as criminals.

"A lot of time the focus and energy was on how do we get the girl out of it and what made her go into it, and quite frankly she got into it because she was poor and she needed money and she was spun a story that was persuasive," Lewis said.

"Instead of focusing on the girl, I use this loosely because there are boys that are trafficked as well, focus on who are these people that purchase this. There must be hundreds and hundreds of guys in our city that go out and buy women on a daily basis."

The other side of the battle

Lewis believes more resources need to be dedicated to human trafficking specifically.

The U.S State Department releases an annual trafficking-in-persons report. The 2010 report recommends that Canada strengthen co-ordination among national and provincial governments on law enforcement and victim services.

The report indicates Canadian law enforcement does comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but indicates Canada has only "demonstrated modest progress in prosecuting and punishing trafficking offenders."

RCMP officer Massie was the first human trafficking co-ordinator in Canada. No longer a co-ordinator, but still involved in the department, he said he has witnessed positive changes.

"We have come along way in the last few years; that is for sure," Massie said.

Bill C-49 passed in 2005 specifically address human trafficking as an indictable offence.

The first person to be convicted in Canada for human trafficking was Imani Nakpangi in 2008. He was sentenced to five years in prison, a relatively mild sentence compared to other developed nations.

This past June, one positive step was taken when Bill C-268, a private bill introduced by Winnipeg MP Joy Smith, passed through the Senate.

The bill calls for mandatory five-year sentences for the trafficking of minors.

"The RCMP fully support this bill," Massie said. "I think establishing minimum sentences is a very positive thing."

There are currently six human-trafficking co-ordinators across the country, and 30,000 people have been trained to recognize the signs of human trafficking since 2005. These people include law enforcement, government workers and specific task forces, like the B.C. based Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

One example of the Canada-wide training is a project that was recently undertaken in Surrey to teach firefighters to be aware of what human trafficking looks like.

"It is your officer on the road who responds to a call of service each and every day who is the one that is most likely to come in contact with a trafficking victim," Massie said.

Public awareness is key to helping law enforcement both identify victims and catch traffickers Massie said.

In 2009 a partnership between the Department of Public Safety, the RCMP and Crime Stoppers was created to better inform the public about human trafficking through a national awareness campaign. The hope was to make people more alert on what to look for and to give them an anonymous way to report information to police.

Massie said some of the things to look for include a person that seems to be controlled and unable to speak for themselves, someone who moves frequently with no notice, and someone who seems intimidated with fear.

"The biggest thing is showing any sign of fear, depression or malnourishment," Massie said. "If someone is doing something that they would not usually do on their own free will, that is a key indicator. You have to ask yourself why are they doing that?"

Finding shelter from the storm

Law enforcement is only part of the battle to loosen the chains of trafficking; victim care is also an important element.

Last year Lewis put together a campaign to raise money for a new home being built by the Salvation Army for women who have fallen victim to sex trafficking.

In the fall of 2008, the Salvation Army began a campaign entitled The Truth Isn't Sexy, which aimed to raise awareness about the presence of human trafficking in Canada.

The campaign was launched across Canada, but was focused in Vancouver because of the fear of a spike in sex trafficking during the 2010 Olympics.

The controversial campaign featured graphic billboards and television ads.

"We wanted to decrease the demand to the sex trade over the Olympics, and in turn hopefully decrease sexual trafficking during the Olympics," Jonathan Michel, from the Vancouver Salvation Army, said. "That's obviously a huge feat for a social services agency to take on, but that was the ultimate goal. And we think we had an impact, it got a lot more people talking, and the media discussing human trafficking as a problem in Canada."

Michel believes the campaign's message was surprising for Canadians.

"A large part of the population hadn't even considered human sexual trafficking to be a problem that would affect Canadians," Michel said. "The discussion that Canadians are buying sex, and could be buying from sexually trafficked women and children was shocking for people. That Canadians go abroad and take part in sexual trafficking, that is a shocking message. The idea that it could be happening on our home soil -- that was shocking for people."

One aspect of the campaign was the safe house created specifically for sexually trafficked women, Deborah's Gate.

Deborah's Gate opened at the end of 2009 in a secret location in Vancouver. Michel believes it is the first of its kind in Canada.

"Its just a place for women that have been rescued to rest and feel safe and to be ready to take the next step in finding freedom from a life of sexual slavery," Michel said.

The home offers 10 beds for women over the age of 18. The Salvation Army works closely with law enforcement officers who refer women to the centre.

Massie said the RCMP really value what the Salvation Army is doing. One of the areas law enforcement identified as needing improvement was support, and projects such as this aid in that aim.

"The RCMP really had to work at getting the trust of the other organizations," Massie said. "We had to look after the safety and protection of the victim first and foremost."

Although the centre only deals with women over 18, Michel said the Salvation Army's policy is to never turn anyone away.

"We certainly have a doors-always-open policy," Michel said. "We have other places where we can support underage people in the interim while an appropriate place is found."

Swallowing the elephant

Lewis said she sometimes feels like she is constantly repeating herself when telling people about human trafficking, but that doesn't stop her from spreading her knowledge to whoever will listen.

"It is a huge topic and can sometimes feel so overwhelming," Lewis said. "But once you make people really understand what it is, they can be looking out for it.

"You go to the airport and there is one guy with a group of scared looking girls, you know that is probably not a good situation. So if you can be aware of that and look out for it in your community and in places you might not expect, that is how we are going to start making a change -- and I think we will."

Lewis said her passion for the subject is now a driving force behind her daily life.

"Quite frankly, I prefer working with human trafficking because it is more stimulating," she said. "I'm making a difference more.

"We have a saying back in South Africa: 'Eat your elephant one bite at time.' If you try and do it all at once you would probably choke, but if you just make small in-roads, and suddenly everybody is making little in-roads, everybody is making a change," she said. "You start to realize there are big changes happening."