Stephanie Bellows can remember getting an unpleasant offer while searching for a job last year.
The Aurora resident and intelligence analyst received an invite from the job search website Zip ecruiter to be an OnlyFans model, a subscription service primarily used for sex work. A company billing itself as “Only Aphrodites Agency,” with an address in Toronto out of a recognized hotel, offered a job with no need to show a face.
“That sounds like I can make money,” Bellows told an audience during a human trafficking lecture. “No, it’s a lot darker than that … This came to my email of all places.”
Those are types of interactions York community organizations and emergency responders spoke about at a human trafficking awareness event July 29. Hosted by Central York Fire Services at its Station 4-5, in partnership with York Regional Police, York Region Paramedics, Ontario Provincial Police and 20 other organizations, the event offered education about human trafficking and its prevalence in York Region.
Deputy Fire Chief Jeremy Inglis said it is a cause he has championed for several years, starting a program while he was working in Niagara Region to create awareness among first responders. Now that he’s in York Region, he said he wanted to bring that forward so that first responders and others outside of policing can network and know how to address trafficking.
As for warning signs, Inglis said it can come down to a “gut feeling to it just doesn’t seem right. The situation just doesn’t seem right. You might notice the individual doesn’t have their ID. Someone else controls their ID. Someone else does their speaking for them. They’re not sure where they are.
“There’s a level of manipulation and coercion,” he added. “Drawing people away from family.”
Bellows was one of the lecturers for the event, speaking to a research project she did tracking human trafficking in York Region. Based on searches through websites like Leolist known for sex work and human trafficking, the biggest hotspots in the region are Vaughan and Markham, with Newmarket being a smaller hotspot.
She said traffickers will lure people using social media and online platforms, with hotels and high-rise condos being frequent locations for the traffickers to operate. Traffickers will also have their victims go into malls to purchase new clothes, Bellows said, and then use back-entrances to avoid being seen.
“Domestic trafficking rates are at an all-time high, most frequently involving girls in the local area,” she said. “They will recruit through social media, through job ads, through any way that they can get them. Girls aged 12 to 25 are the most at risk.”
Agencies need to work together to address the problem, Bellows said. She noted that locations like hotels could stand to have localized training to recognize trafficking as it happens.
She also said the mindset should not be around eradication, which is not practical.
“It is my personal opinion this is an unrealistic goal, as trafficking will never be eradicated,” she said. “A more pressing priority should be the acceptance and support of victims, not eradication.”
That should come with targeted outreach of exploited women and girls, as well as education on the subject matter," Bellows said.
Many community organizations that work with abused and trafficked women attended, such as the Women’s Network of York Region.
Paddy Greene of Abuse Hurts said trafficking remains very prevalent, and people do not realize it until they become involved in combating it.
“It’s wonderful to see all the different organizations with the same goal,” she said.
Holland Landing resident Danielle Rosa attended and said she wanted to “keep my kid safe and get conversations going and to make sure people are informed about what is really going on in the world.”
“There’s a lot of great things happening here,” she said of the event. “I think the majority of people are really trying to help out.”
Several members of Newmarket council were in attendance, as was Newmarket-Aurora MPP Dawn Gallagher Murphy.
“Every single one of us in this room can do something about (human trafficking) to stop it,” she said. “We need to come together as a community to try and prevent this horrible crime.”
