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N.B. police report spike in human trafficking in 2024
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A spike in reports of human trafficking across New Brunswick has experts scrambling to offer advice to officials on the topic and urging the province to create its own human trafficking unit to crack down on the underground trade.
Last year, New Brunswick saw the highest number of human trafficking incidents reported to police in decades, according to Statistics Canada.
Police-reported data from 2024 shows that New Brunswick also tied with Ontario for the second-highest rate of human trafficking reports per capita across the 10 provinces.
There were 17 incidents reported to police in New Brunswick, the report said, resulting in six people charged.
That's the highest number of incidents reported since 1998, with 2023 seeing the second-highest count at 12.
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In 2024, New Brunswick saw the highest number of human trafficking incidents and charges in decades. Experts say it's a complicated crime, and the province must improve its response to victims who come forward.
But one researcher says those numbers may only scratch the surface.
"This is to the point where police believe they have a suspect in mind and enough to recommend or lay a charge for that person," said Mary Ann Campbell, director of the University of New Brunswick's Centre for Criminal Justice Studies and Policing Research.
"So it's still not capturing unreported incidents of human sex trafficking, which means the rates could be higher than those numbers actually suggest in the official statistics."
About half of the incident reports in 2024 were made in Moncton.
Campbell said that's not surprising, as there is a known trafficking corridor that runs from Halifax, through Moncton, and westward to Quebec.
For the past five years, Ashley MacDonald has run a program in Moncton called YWCA Brave, which supports victims and people vulnerable to human trafficking and delivers education sessions to the public.
MacDonald has noticed a significant shift over the past year.
"I'm getting ... a dramatic increase from government bodies and departments asking for the educational workshops, and what [human trafficking] is. That has gone up astronomically this year," she said in an interview.
"There's been some really public cases that have been in the media locally and I think that's really helped the public understand that this … happens next door, it happens in our neighbourhoods."
In May, a 26-year-old man from Sussex was sentenced to 16 years in prison, according to the New Brunswick RCMP, for several crimes including human trafficking.
Earlier this year, a 19-year-old woman, who cannot be named, was sentenced to three years in prison after admitting to three charges of sex trafficking that involved moving two girls into Moncton from another province. The court heard the woman was recruited into the sex trade herself as a minor, after her mother died.
A complicated crime
Campbell said it's common for human trafficking victims to become involved in criminal activity themselves, making it more complicated for law enforcement to get the person out of the situation.
"Sometimes [it's] drug possession and selling of drugs, maybe that's just part of the bigger dynamic. And if you just focus on those pieces, you're missing an opportunity to get somebody out of this situation," she said.
"Often one of the things they're going to do is ply the person with drugs, get you hooked and then your supply is coming from your sex trafficker and … you've got to pay your debt now through sex trafficking."
Campbell said that's one of several ways a perpetrator may try to exert control over victims.
"Some of those things they've done can be used as leverage against them now, because they've done these things that if others found out they could get in trouble for," she said.
Youth with greater emotional needs for belonging may be especially vulnerable to trafficking, Campbell said.
"They may ... not think great things about themselves, but yet this other group of people that's trying to hook them in, this gives them a lot of praise and accolades and helps them feel special and wanted," she said.
"It's a very complex issue, with a lot of that psychological manipulation that really works against a person … it's not always easy to just get out."
MacDonald said New Brunswick needs its own human trafficking police unit — something already in place in neighbouring Nova Scotia.
"If for years we've been saying, 'there's no human trafficking in New Brunswick,' which by and large has been the attitude, well, why would we have the specialized force?" she said.
"So you kind of have to make the argument, which means you need the numbers — which we aren't capturing well in New Brunswick, because for so long it was said that the issue isn't here."
Cpl. Holly Erb, New Brunswick RCMP sexual violence co-ordinator, said this year the province gave the force funding to introduce a team partially focused on trafficking.
"The province of New Brunswick announced funding in their 2025-2026 budget for the development of a specialized sexual violence unit, focused on investigating cases of sexual violence and human trafficking," Erb said in a statement.
"By investing in this specialized unit, we are ensuring that we have the necessary resources, expertise, and capacity to respond effectively, support survivors, and bring offenders to justice."
Erb did not say when the unit will begin operating.
'You don't have to report it to police to get out of it'
MacDonald said the true scope of human trafficking won't be captured through statistics.
"A lot of people who are trafficked also, they don't want to report it. They don't want to go to the police. They just want to rebuild their lives," MacDonald said. "I think it's really complicated when we're talking about statistics."
Campbell agrees, noting sometimes it is safer or less traumatic for the victim not to pursue criminal charges.
"The more people we have outside of law enforcement that are aware of the signs and can be a support for folks that have been through this or have survived this type of experience, the better," she said.
"You don't have to report it to police to get out of it. We just want to make sure people have a place to be where they feel safe and can transition out of that type of criminal activity that they've been victimized by."
Andrée-Anne Marks, justice lead at Sexual Violence New Brunswick, said more victims are coming forward, but the province's response must be more consistent and co-ordinated.
"From what I've heard from survivors, you know, sometimes they get access to one phone call. And if we're not able to kind of really speak to that one phone call, then that might be the last time that person is able to reach out for support," Marks said.
"Capitalizing on being able to really offer those holistic wraparound supports is going to be really important. And that's going to take more than one government agency."
She said medical settings can be an important opening for people to get help, and noted the importance of continued funding for sexual assault nurse examiners, and legal aid for survivors who want to understand their options in the justice system.
