Earlier this month, Survivor’s Hope Crisis Centre brought awareness to March being Stop Childhood Sexual Exploitation Awareness Month by hosting an Understanding Childhood Exploitation workshop at the Selkirk Friendship Centre. This event brought people from different groups together to discuss the issue of Childhood Sexual Exploitation and how being more aware can help make our community a safer place.
The workshop started with Survivor’s Hope’s Chantal Shibata reminding everyone to care for themselves as they go through the workshop, followed by an Elder from our community opening the day’s discussion.
“The goal is to create space, not only to listen and learn, but also to ask questions, reflect on what you hear and, connect with presenters and others in the room,” said Shibata.
The first professional of the day was Shamin Brown of Shamin Brown Consulting, who is a trauma-informed counsellor, registered social worker, and certified life and health coach based in Winnipeg.
Brown started her discussion by talking about vulnerability factors that make youth more likely to be exploited. Some factors that she brought up were being disconnected from home, poverty, racism, colonialization, and stigmatization.
Brown explained that all of these factors disrupt psychological safety.
She said that these vulnerabilities can be exploited in a variety of grooming relationships that lead to exploitation. These relationships can be peer to peer exploitation, an older boyfriend exploiting a younger person, a party model where the youth go to a party too far away for them to get back on their own and then are exploited in return for a trip home, and, finally, Brown discussed a familial model where a family member organizes the sexual exploitation of the youth.
“We’re linking vulnerability factors with grooming. We also have to consider how that grooming takes place. I think we often think that grooming happens by one person on one occasion, but as you’ve heard today, it can actually happen over a long period of time through multiple people and multiple experiences, which normalizes that experience for the youth or the person who is having it. When you’re experiencing the same thing over and over again, you start to believe that that is exactly what you should be experiencing, and that it’s normal, and maybe not healthy, but definitely normal, especially if we’re coming from backgrounds where there is dysfunction in the home or unhealthy relating with one another,” said Brown.
She concluded by talking about how healing is ongoing for survivors and that we need to find ways so that people coming out of exploitation can find safe spaces where, instead of being someone with a lived experience, they can become a survivor.
The day’s next speaker was a survivor of exploitation who chose to share their story. This powerful story really brought home that, though this person is an adult now, youth from our own community are being exploited, and it is something we need to be aware of.
The next presenter was Janet Campbell from the Joy Smith Foundation.
The Joy Smith Foundation is a three-generation family foundation that dedicates its life’s work to combating human trafficking.
Campbell discussed how exploitation and trafficking can occur in ways that are not always immediately visible, and how increased awareness can help communities recognize and respond to these situations.
“In the years that we have been doing this work, we have had the great honour of connecting with, meeting, getting to know, and supporting thousands of survivors across the country. What we know is that for sure, there are warning signs, right? It’s like we talked about, they’re there. But the reality is, it is hidden in plain sight, and that is why the education and awareness about the issue and the process is so important,” said Campbell.
She explained that sometimes these warning signs are chalked up to rebellion or a phase, but that’s why education and awareness are important, so that people can recognize the signs.
Campbell pointed to free resources online at joysmithfoundation.com for more information.
Some common factors that Campbell discussed that they see again and again in people who have been exploited are complex trauma, online spaces, and drugs and alcohol.
She also says that fear and shame are the biggest barriers to their work.
“The fear is that no one will believe them. It’s that they are going to get in trouble. It’s that they will be hurt, or maybe their family members will be hurt, because we’ve seen that a lot as well. If you don’t do what’s expected of you, we will hurt your family. Fear is a huge barrier in opening these conversations, and shame, shame people carry, shame of ‘It’s my fault. People are going to judge me. I chose this,’ which, by the way, I don’t agree with any of those things, but I do understand that that’s the lens that people feel as they carry that shame. The shame that’s being carried there is a barrier to getting help and also healing afterwards, but I don’t agree that it’s your fault,” said Campbell.
She concluded by talking about how education is our greatest weapon against exploitation.
Shibata and Natasha Van Dorp, SARAH Crisis Coordinator & SADI Coordinator, and the Health & Safety Representative for Survivor’s Hope Crisis Centre, led the next presentation about digital boundaries as our youth navigate online spaces.
They first discussed how consent is important and consent needs to be given freely, it needs to be reversible, it should be informed, and given enthusiastically.
They then talked about how in presentations to youth, they talk about what healthy relationships are and the characteristics of healthy relationships, like honesty, trust, respect, open communication, and being able to still be your own person.
Next, the pair discussed some statistics about exploitation, including that, though the stereotype may be that girls are more at risk, in practice, boys are actually targeted more when it comes to online harms.
“Luring is when a person, typically an adult, but not always, communicates with youth through technology like texting, direct messaging or chatting in an app, game or website to make it easier to commit a specific sexual offence against them. Luring is often the first step in online sexual exploitation, as it establishes trust before requests for images, personal information, or sexual conversations begin,” said Van Dorp.
Shibata then explained that sextortion, simply put, is blackmail.
“It’s when someone online threatens to send a sexual image or video to another person if you don’t pay them or provide them with more sexual content. Sextorsion often begins with luring or grooming and can escalate quickly through fear and shame,” they said.
These videos or images aren’t even necessarily real, as technology exists which can make it appear that someone’s head is on a different body.
Some signs of online luring are youth being secretive about their online activity. There might be sudden new online friends that they don’t want to talk about. There might be emotional changes after being online, like anxiety, withdrawal, mood swings, or maybe they don’t want to get offline. Also, receiving unexplained money, gifts or devices, deleting messages or quickly closing the screen when others enter the room are things to look out for.
They continued the conversation, talking about why learning autonomy is important for youth.
“Guided autonomy helps build a healthy digital identity. It can also teach responsibility and consequences. If the adults make every decision, children don’t learn how to manage privacy settings, they can’t handle conflict or be able to respond to risky messages, or balance screen time. So, gradual autonomy allows children to learn from small mistakes in safer environments before they face bigger risks as teens,” said Van Dorp.
Additionally, they discussed the importance of understanding and limiting what parents share online about their children, as parents can reveal personal information which could affect their children in the future without even realizing it.
In ending their presentation, they shared resources like the Canadian Center for Child Protection at protectchildren.ca, needhelpnow.ca, cybertip.ca, loveisrespect.org, and dontgetsextorted.ca. You can also learn more from Survivor’s Hope themselves at survivors-hope.ca.
The final presentation of the day was Hennes Doltze, Geraldine Gruszczyk, Alexis Delaurier, and Chris Molloy from EmpowerMen, who spoke about the role men play in prevention and creating safer communities.
Doltze discussed how men need to be part of the conversation about reducing exploitation.
Gruszczyk discussed some of the community training opportunities that they have for adults before Delaurier and Molloy discussed the options that they have for youth workshops that help to bring awareness to stopping exploitation. Molloy also discussed how their workshops are for youth of all genders, and they keep it fun while also educational.
The day ended with a question and answer session followed by a sound meditation.
