Book Review l Invisible Chains : Canda's Underground World of Human Trafficking

Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking,

Benjamin

Perrin

Book Review and Discussion on the topic of Modern Day Slavery

I think this is a must read book for everyone, everywhere. This doubles for any Canadian, Triples if you are in any faculty of Law Enforcement, Social Services, Health Care Services or if your a parent.



This is a very hard topic to read about, and this isn't the easiest writing to read in general - I had to take quite a few notes, and reference back to them often - the style of writing can also be very dry, leaning heavily into lengthy explainations.

This book was written by a lawyer and you can tell, while we need material in this format, which is incredibly educational and informative, we also need material that is reader friendly. We need this topic to be widespread and discussed freely. What we are talking about is SLAVERY, modern day slavery, going on in our backyard. Terms like "trafficking" are very misleading to the general public, as this leads the majority of people to think it involves travel (which of course means third world counties, war torn states and foreigners) and while we, the people, sympathize and wish it would stop. It doesn't really promote action on our part does it?

But it does not have anything to do with travel, The traffickers can be Canadians (white, privileged, your next door neighbor type Canadians), the victims are; men, women, boys, girls. Adults and Children of all and any ethnicity who are also Canadian. and guess who the buyers are? Our doctors, teachers, lawyers, friends and family. <--- this is the worst piece of the puzzle, because the information in this book all comes down to one fact.

The business of Human trafficking

(also known as debt bondage and modern day slavery)

is a supply and demand business.

If a country, province, state or city has no demand,

the traffickers (with there supply of humans for sale) 

 will move to wherever there is a demand.

Back to the book, the timeline runs between about 2002 - 2009, which means as of today any statistics or "recent actions", public awareness, ect. is all 10 years old, more or less.
I would love to see an updated book within this year or around 2019/2020, especially - Wondering why I say especially??? Canada's immigration and refugee laws have become more lax than they have ever been since 2015.

While this helping out many, many, people and families into a better life, there are flaws with this system being "too quick and easy" however. It is a fact, that the lack of proper screening has invited criminals who know how to work the system, into our country. This includes drug dealers, rapists, murders, extremist ideologist*** and this will include Human Traffickers and their victims.

Two other factors that are not helping the situation, that flow downhill from our government.***

1.the lack of awareness, over the past 4 years (2014-2018) in particular. We have had lots of public service announcements regarding; the LGBTQ+ movements, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, livable wages, highlighting of basic human rights. Which is awesome and great. But I have noticed a trend (and I'm not the only one, but I will only speak for myself), if something has not been mentioned favourably or widely in the media (particularly social media) people think it does not exist essentially, that because we are not talking about it, that it's not a problem. This is very far from the truth and it is a very sad fact that "news" reports what is trendy NOT what is important.

2. Lack of funding for our immigration officers and our police services, million of dollars have been funneled into immigration, for office staff, to process applications and do whatever other paper shuffling is needed. Guess where at least a chunk of that money came from? Our budget for enforcement officers, both police and immigration.
In 2009 when this book was written we had special victims units with one or maybe two detectives and any support staff they had was shared between many units. This means we had at most two people covering; domestic violence, rape, child abuse and  human trafficking.
This lack of funds extends beyond manpower, it goes into all the other things in an investigation - such as wiretaps, DNA analysis and so much more. It affects the whole judicial system as well, judges and prosecutors can't take on expensive cases because they don't have the budget (this is a whole other kettle of fish, where murderers, rapists, ect. walk free)


*** Side Notes :

*When I say extremists I am not singling out Muslims (so calm down), extreme ideologies are not only religions, Ideologies can include; religions, cultural practices, family traditions and a multitude of other things. Examples of the negative things, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), forced marriages, child marriages, child sex practices, honour killings, and human trafficking. 

**While I am talking negatively about our current government, this is not me expressing my political views. These are facts. and another fact for anyone super pro-liberal reading that rolling their eyes and going "yeah right:" NONE of the Canadian governments, now or previously have ever dealt with the issue of human trafficking, we are WAY behind as a nation on these policies.