An $85,000 provincial grant has been used to shed the light and provide education on human trafficking locally.
On Wednesday, the Sexual Assault Crisis Centre explained more about an $85,400 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation which was used to create six documentary-style short films showcasing testimonials from individuals formally caught up in human trafficking.
A new website has also been launched with a series of videos that target internet safety among youth. This series of four videos are geared towards children aged three to seven, and this project was funded by the Windsor Essex Community Foundation.
Both of these projects provide educational training tools for members of the community working with human trafficking victims, as well as educational tools to educate in reducing the risk of being a victim.
Barbara Mann, a survivor of human trafficking, is in the films explaining her experience, as well as the loss of her daughter in February 2023 to human trafficking.
Mann says her daughter was a very beautiful girl, but she didn't love herself.
"I think she reached out to the people on the street as her "family", and they took total advantage of her. I know she was trafficked, I know they cut her ankles so that she couldn't leave and go to the police. I know she saw so many horrible things out there, she talked to me about."
She says following the loss of her daughter, she wants to be her voice and help others impacted.
"Just if anyone is out there that is being trafficked, please reach out to somebody because there is resources to help you, and to get you out of that lifestyle. I'm seeing so many movies on human trafficking, and they're horrible but they're real."
Lydia Fiorini, former executive director of the Sexual Assault Crisis Centre, says many times it starts out as just meeting someone and then it forms into what seems like a relationship.
"It snowballs into 'okay, now that you're now my boyfriend, or you're now my girlfriend, can you do this for me because I owe money, I need help, I know how you can help me'. And they're so entrenched in that relationship that they'll so anything for that partner, and before they know it they are stuck."
Fiorini says the reality is that children are being trafficked every day.
"We are regularly responding to children who are hurt because of online realities, and we really as an organization don't want to do this anymore. As I retire 40 years later, the hope was that we would be out of work, and sadly the threats continue."
Fiorini says unfortunately they see a couple hundred new children in the Sexual Assault Crisis Centre programs every year that are impacted at different levels.
The Sexual Assault Crisis Centre offers counselling services to anyone who has been a victim of sexual assault.
The videos can be found by clicking here.