Sask. introduces legislation to protect victims of human trafficking

The Government of Saskatchewan has taken steps to protect victims of human trafficking from financial coercion.

On Thursday, the government introduced the Protection from Human Trafficking (Coerced Debts) Amendment Act, 2023, which it said will stop lenders from including information about coerced debts in credit reports and from taking coerced debts into account when evaluating a potential loan.

“This is about reducing dependency between victims and their traffickers, who often force victims to take out loans on their behalf and then prevent them from repaying them,” Bronwyn Eyre, the province’s justice minister and attorney general, said in a media release.

“We hope that these new protections will help vulnerable victims rebuild their lives without coerced debts hanging over their heads.”

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Julia Drydyk, the executive director of the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, said those debts can create “significant barriers” as survivors and victims try to rebuild their lives.

“With the introduction of The Protection for Human Trafficking (Coerced Debts) Amendment Act, Saskatchewan is one of the first provinces that is taking steps to address the financial abuse elements of human trafficking,” Drydyk said in the release.

“The centre encourages the Government of Saskatchewan to work closely with survivor experts and front-line agencies to ensure this legislation is implemented in a way that empowers survivors and reduces barriers to accessing support.”

The legislation creates what the government called “a private, trauma-informed certification process for victims” that they can access through the Ministry of Justice’s Victims Services. That organization will confirm the victim’s history and debts that were incurred as a result and will give the applicant a certificate to use when working with a credit reporting agency.

The new legislation follows the introduction in 2022 of The Protection from Human Trafficking Act, which gave victims greater access to protection orders against human traffickers and allowed the victims to sue their traffickers for financial compensation.

The province said it also has invested more than $27.5 million in interpersonal violence supports and services this year.