The recent focus on the Canada-U.S. border has led to frequent confusion between human smuggling and human trafficking. Smuggling involves people moving across international borders. In most cases, irregular migrants who are smuggled into the country consent to assistance. Human trafficking, on the other hand, involves the exploitation of people for sex or labor through coercion, regardless of geographic movement.

Continued conflation of these terms will undoubtedly harm anti-human trafficking efforts and lead to victims going undetected. Human trafficking happens in cities and towns across Canada, affecting people of all backgrounds. If Canadians mistakenly believe that trafficking only happens at the border, they will inevitably miss the signs of trafficking in their communities—and even in their own homes.

Popular media has also made it more difficult for Canadians to understand the reality of human trafficking. Rarely are people whisked away in unmarked white vans to be sold into trafficking rings. In reality, human trafficking takes place far closer to home and usually starts with someone the victim knows and trusts. If Canadians only look for cinematic signs of trafficking—if they only watch for nightmarish boogeymen—they will overlook the actual indicators, which are far more subtle.

The chains that bind victims to their traffickers are rarely made of metal: They are invisible and psychological in nature, forming bonds that are not easily seen but deeply felt.

To effectively combat human trafficking, the public needs to be immediately disabused of these pervasive and sensationalized myths and equipped with the knowledge to recognize sex trafficking in their communities.

Traffickers target people with vulnerabilities in their lives, such as problems at home, low self-esteem, conflicts with friends, poverty, homelessness, substance use, and mental health disorders. They typically pose as caring and loving figures to their target, offering them whatever they need most as a way of cementing deep psychological bonds and material dependency.

Traffickers then quickly leverage this newly created bond against their target, often pushing their sexual boundaries to groom them into the commercial sex industry. What feels like consent at first quickly turns into control. Threats, violence, and manipulation are used to keep targets in the commercial sex industry, with profits swiftly funneled back to the trafficker.

The first step toward effective action is education. This involves understanding that anyone can be a trafficker, and anyone can be a victim. Traffickers often exploit people when they are at their lowest—people experiencing housing and economic instability, emotional distress, and a lack of social supports are especially vulnerable.

By educating ourselves on the real signs of trafficking, such as changes in behavior, unexplained absences from home or school, not having control of their belongings, suddenly having expensive things they normally couldn’t afford, or signs of being controlled by another person—we can start to make a difference.

We know Canadians’ hearts are in the right place when it comes to fighting human trafficking. A January 2024 poll by the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking and Angus Reid revealed that 85 percent of us would like to be part of the solution, yet 95 percent admitted they need more tools to better understand sex trafficking.

Bridging this gap between good intentions and knowledge is precisely how we start making a difference. Human trafficking happens every day, in communities across Canada. To confront it, we must recognize the real signs and talk about them—at home, at work, and in our communities.

Human trafficking thrives in the shadows: Sustained education and awareness are our most effective tools in combating it.

Julia Drydyk is a public policy analyst.