Described Videos: Hear from Survivors of Sex Trafficking

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Hear from Survivors about warning signs

While each trafficking situation is unique, there are some common signs experienced by sex trafficking victims or Survivors. The following video features real testimonies from Survivors of sex trafficking sharing their lived experiences.

Transcription

[Text appears in a white font over a black screen. Onscreen text: The following video contains topics that may be distressing to some audiences including sexual exploitation, drug use, and violence. Viewer discretion is advised.]

[The background is now blue with a white font. Onscreen text: The following video contains testimonies from survivors of sex trafficking and their family members. The words 'survivors,' 'sex trafficking,' and 'family members' are emphasized in a green font.]

[Onscreen text: They've shared their experiences to help Canadians understand the problem of human trafficking in this country. The words 'human trafficking' are emphasized in a green font.]

[The background is now light blue. Text appears in a white font inside a dark blue box. Onscreen text: What are potential warning signs experienced by sex trafficking victims or survivors? The words 'warning signs' are emphasized in a green font. Onscreen text: Brenda. Brenda has shoulder-length dark hair. She wears a black top with a red dress pin and wears round earrings. She sits on a grey sofa. Behind her is a painting of a tree.]

[Music]

[Brenda] We need to learn what the signs are and we need to use our gut feelings and call in. I think so many times we see something and we're just like, it's not my business, and keep going.

I don't know, I just feel like it's our responsibility to take care of each other, watch over each other, and if we had the signs, we would know more.

[Underlined text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: Subtle forms of control. Onscreen text: Mallory. Mallory has brown hair. She wears a grey shirt and has a piercing in her cheek. She sits on a sofa. Nearby, the flames from three candles on a table flicker.]

[Mallory] He would be in another hotel room that I was paying for. He would have friends and alcohol and weed and they would just hang out and enjoy themselves while I was working.

If I was to leave at all, I needed to tell him and I needed to come right back, obviously. Usually he would send his friend's girlfriend with me to go out so that I wouldn't go anywhere by myself. And after a little bit, I realized that was a pattern, that I never really got to go anywhere by myself.

At one point, my ID and stuff went missing too.

[Underlined text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: Substance misuse. Onscreen text: Raine. Raine has black hair and wears glasses. She wears a denim jacket, beaded earrings, and has a piercing in her septum and lip. She stands near a wooded area.]

[Raine] I wasn't taught about the birds and the bees, about sex, safe sex, consent. That didn't exist in the late 90s, early 2000s. I was struggling with the impacts of being raped and I was turning to drugs and alcohol to cope.

[Logs burn in a fire.]

I currently have a 13-year-old boy that I'm raising and if they automatically started consuming large quantities of drugs I'd be like, what is going on? You know what I mean? I don't think anybody as a young child is like, when I grow up,I want to drink copious amounts of alcohol and put a bunch of drugs in my system. Nobody wants to do that.

[Underlined text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: Self-harming behavior. Onscreen text: Charlie. Charlie has auburn hair that has been tied in a bun. She wears a black blazer and a colourful, large, beaded necklace. She has piercings in her ears, in her nose, and one on her cheek. She sits in front of a fireplace.]

[Charlie] I can't speak for other people, but in my life, my eating disorder started around the age of when-- it started at eight, and that's when it started at eight, and that's when I started being trafficked.

[Charlie stands at a window and looks out at the woods below.]

And it's like, I started controlling my food, I started hiding food. I didn't understand what I was doing, but I would just do it and it made me feel better. And yeah, and then it just kind of progressed from there.

[Daytime. Charlie walks through the woods wearing a pink winter coat with black trim and black pants.]

I struggled with self-harm for a long time and people call it an addiction, and that's something that I've overcome. But that was what I did to escape the trauma.

Trauma can really affect someone and with what happened, I just-- I didn't know what else to do. I didn't feel like I had anyone to turn to. Like, I know it sounds kind of weird, causing physical pain, but I guess causing the physical pain takes away the emotional pain.

[Underlined text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: Changes in physical appearance. Mallory is shown getting her hand tattooed. She wears a black beanie and wears a green vest over an orange and black flannel shirt. She sits across from a tattoo artist with her arm extended.]

[Mallory] I had a tattoo put on while I was with my trafficker, and it was the name that he gave me. That was my identity for a very long time.

[The tattoo artist, a man wearing glasses with tattooed arms and a beard, works on a tattoo on the top of her hand, wearing black rubber gloves.]

It's hard having a piece of your body that you don't want to look at, or that you don't want other people to ask questions about, or you avoid. How do you avoid your own place on your body?

[Music]

[Text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: The experiences shared reflect potential warning signs of sex trafficking, but it's not an exhaustive list. Each trafficking situation is unique, and the warning signs are wide-ranging. The words 'warning signs of sex trafficking' are emphasized in a green font.]

[If you or someone you know may be a victim or survivor of sex trafficking, call the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-833-900-1010. The phone number is emphasized in a green font.]

[Text appears in a white font on a black background. Copyright His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, as represented by the Ministers of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, 2025.]

PS18-96/1-2025E-MP4
ISBN 978-0-660-75677-6

[The Canadian flag appears in red and black next to the words Public Safety Canada and Securité publique Canada.]

[The word Canada appears in a white font with a red and white Canadian flag blowing in the breeze above the letter a.]

Hear from Survivors about how traffickers target victims

The following video features real testimonies from Survivors of sex trafficking, sharing some of the ways traffickers can target and recruit their victims, based on their lived experiences.

Transcription

[They've shared their experiences to help Canadians understand the problem of human trafficking in this country. The words 'human trafficking' are emphasized in a green font.]

[The background is now light blue. Text appears in a white font inside a dark blue box. Onscreen text: How can traffickers target victims? The words 'target victims' is emphasized in a green font.]

[Onscreen text: Mallory. Mallory has brown hair. She wears a grey shirt and has a piercing in her cheek. She sits on a sofa.]

[Music]

[Mallory] I don't really know how to identify a trafficker. A predator, somebody who's willing to sacrifice you for their own gains, sacrifice your spirituality, your mental health, your safety, your identity, your connection with the world. All of it.

[Underlined text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: Through friendships. Onscreen text: Brenda. Brenda has light brown hair. She is wearing a black blazer over a floral print top and wears earrings. She sits at the foot of a bed.]

[Brenda] My daughter was 16. She met a girl on Facebook and they became friends and maybe whatever she was going through with her partner that I didn't know about was creating this new change of new friends. Her friend invited her to Toronto.

[Daytime, a view of Toronto on a sunny day. In the distance, the CN Tower stands above all other buildings.]

We were going to a Blue Jays game as a family. She had mentioned that her girlfriend was in Toronto. She's going to go shopping, so can I just go hang out and shop with her? And so I said, well, let your friend meet us here, and her friend did. Her friend did and she looked her age and she seemed fine.

We all took a picture before she walked away because we were doing a family thing and then she left.

[Brenda holds up her smartphone. A blurred image of a young woman with long blonde hair appears on the phone's screen.]

They had her for two days.

Yeah. It was the worst two days of my life. I've never been so scared in my life.

I don't know how many girls that other girl brought in. She's-- my daughter is probably just one of many girls that young lady destroyed, right?

[Underlined text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: Through relationships. Mallory appears again sitting on a couch.]

[Mallory] I met my trafficker when I was 19.

[Mallory nods.]

Yeah, we got really close because he was funny and he was charming, and he was approachable, and he hung out with some very interesting people but he seemed like he was different from the rest.

[Three candles flicker on a nearby table.]

It helped him gain my trust even faster. It started the first night that I was with him. He took my money and he said it was to pay for the hotel room and to pay for the gas, to come pick me up and to pay for the outfits that he bought me. And he just kept taking money.

[Mallory interlaces her fingers on her lap. She has tattooed hands with French manicured nails.]

He would come into the hotel room after my client had left and he would take the money and he would say, thank you and give me a kiss.

It was almost presented to me as a relationship. I just thought that's what falling in love was and really, it was what brainwashing was. All the promises, all the things that I thought I could trust, weren't true.

[Underlined text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: Through family. Onscreen text: Charlie. Charlie has auburn hair that has been tied in a bun. She wears a black blazer over a mauve top with a large, colourful, beaded necklace. She has piercings in her ears and one on her cheek. She sits in a home in front of two windows.]

[Charlie] I think a lot of people don't understand that it happens within families and that's something that needs to improve.

When I was eight years old, it was my birthday and a family member took me out and said that I can get lots of candies and teddy bears if I was a good girl and did what I was told.

I didn't understand I was being trafficked, but now as an adult, I understand what was happening. I was told to lie and I was told I'd be taken away if I told them anything.

[Charlie presses her hands together.]

My granny was like my main care provider. She would ask me questions but I was told not to tell anybody, so I didn't tell anyone for a long time.

[Underlined text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: By fulfilling a need. Onscreen text: Raine. Raine has black hair and wears glasses. She wears a denim jacket, beaded earrings, and has a piercing in her septum and lip. She stands near a wooded area.]

[Raine] It's about power and control. Human trafficking just isn't only about working the streets and exchanging sex for money, it's also exchanging sex for drugs and alcohol. It's also exchanging sex for a place of safety because maybe that house is safer than whatever's going on at home.

[Daytime, a view of a fence-lined alley. Trees, bushes, and weeds grow through, under, and over the fencing.]

There's a lot of exploitation happening within the younger community, however, it's not on the streets anymore. It's moved indoors. We call them trap houses.

[The view from the front windshield of a car driving down a suburban street on a sunny day.]

Trap houses is like an urban term we use for houses that are a drug house and a lot
of exploitation happens there.

[Underlined text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: With job opportunities. Onscreen text: Augusta. Augusta has curly auburn hair and a nose piercing in her left nostril. She wears a long-sleeved grey sweater. She sits in front of a window. She uses her thumb to scroll through apps on her smartphone, then begins composing a text.]

[Augusta] I met this person in November and he randomly added me on Snapchat and messaged me about a job opportunity. Like, it's a tactic and he had it down perfectly.

He then started to try and get to know me, be more so like my friend. Because the more that they get to know you, the more they know how to manipulate you.

[Music]

[Text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: The experiences shared reflect some of the ways traffickers can recruit, but it's not an exhaustive list. Traffickers use a variety of ways to recruit and exploit potential victims. The words 'recruit and exploit' are emphasized in a green font.]

[Onscreen text: If you or someone you know may be a victim or survivor of sex trafficking, call the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-833-900-1010. The phone number is emphasized in a green font.]

[Text appears in a white font on a black background. Onscreen text: Copyright His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, as represented by the Ministers of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, 2025.]

PS18-96/1-2025E-MP4
ISBN 978-0-660-75685-1

[The Canadian flag appears in red and black next to the words Public Safety Canada and Securité publique Canada.]

[The word Canada appears in a white font with a red and white Canadian flag blowing in the breeze above the letter 'a'.]

Hear from Survivors about how they escaped

For many reasons, exiting trafficking can be very difficult. Hear testimonies from those who have survived sex trafficking situations, have safely exited, and are now sharing their lived experiences to help keep Canadians safe.

Transcription

[Music.]

[New text appears. Onscreen text: They've shared their experiences to help Canadians understand the problem of human trafficking in this country. The words 'human trafficking' are emphasized in a green font.]

[The background is now light blue. Text appears in a white font inside a dark blue box. Onscreen text: How can survivors exit sex trafficking? The words 'sex trafficking' are emphasized in a green font. Onscreen text: Raine. Raine has black hair and wears glasses. She wears a denim jacket, beaded earrings, and has a piercing in her septum and lip.]

[Raine] What I want to say for those currently entrenched, no matter what's going on, you're sacred, you are loved.

[She nods. Logs burn in a fire.]

And it's going to be hard but don't give up. There is a life on the other side of being human trafficked. A beautiful life.

[Faint singing and drumming.]

[Daytime. Raine sits on sandy soil next to a wall of railroad ties, beside a small hill covered in brush. An older woman with white hair and a middle-aged woman with brown hair sit with her. Raine and the older woman play rattles, and the other woman plays a hand drum. Raine sings as she plays the instrument.]

I have a voice now and I have power over my body. I have a say in who gets to get close to me, and I deserve respect.

[A hanging ornament has several strands with decorative beads attached to small bells, casting a shadow against a wall. The bells have staggered heights and slowly rotate in the breeze.]

[Augusta] So it was a Saturday, and I got a text from my dad being like, hey, do you want to come for dinner? And I was like yeah, that would be great.

[Inside a home, plates filled with food, beverage glasses, and a bowl of salad sit atop a dining room table.]

So I went over for dinner and at the end, the tone-- the whole room, it's as if someone zapped all the energy out of it. It went completely stagnant.

[A ceiling fan above the table slows to a stop. Onscreen text: Augusta. Augusta has curly auburn hair and a nose piercing in her left nostril. She sits in front of a window.]

And my dad looked at me from across the table and he said, I got a weird text today. And I immediately started crying because I knew. They texted my eldest sister the same thing that they texted my mom and dad saying, this is his Instagram, he's pimping her out. Are you aware that this is happening?

[Nighttime. Augusta, wearing a spaghetti-strap top, stands on her porch with a drink in her hand. Light glows in windows from homes across from her, and a light in the shape of a star illuminates the top of a nearby table.]

So I literally called the hotline and then we literally started speaking same day. I had three weeks back at my parents' house and then I think it was like three days later, I went into treatment. It was a home for women who had survived human trafficking.

[Augusta sits outside for the interview. Two candles burn on a table.]

You're addicted to this relationship. That's what they count on.

[Onscreen text: Mallory. Mallory has brown hair. She wears a grey shirt and has a piercing in her cheek. She sits on a sofa. Nearby, the flames from three candles on a table flicker.]

[Mallory] When I exited from my trafficker, I was almost 20 years old. It was actually somebody who was involved in the trafficking of me who spoke up on why this all came to light.

[Mallory has a black and red checked blanket over her lap. She has several tattoos on her arms, hands, and fingers. She has French manicured fingernails.

Without that person saying something, I would have been dead by now. I would have been dead by now because I didn't even know that what I had experienced was human trafficking

[Daytime. Sunlight shimmers on the surface of a large lake near a range of mountains. Mallory sits at the end of a wooden dock looking out at the water. A small boat is visible in the distance.

And that's something I often asked myself, was why didn't I ever tell anybody, or why didn't I ask for help, or why didn't I leave with one of them?

And it was out of fear. It was fear of my trafficker, fear of the connections that he had and the people he knew. Fear of the abuse from him, fear for my life, fear for my family's life, fear for the safety of my child at the time.

[Mallory wades into ankle deep water on a rocky shoreline with a toddler girl.

This is one of the most horrific crimes that can be committed towards a person. And to know what resilience it takes to fight back on your own, that's not what most people have in them.

[Mallory picks up a large rock from under the water and tosses it. The young girl covers her ears as the rock hits the water.]

It takes such strength to try to come out of this fire, it's impossible to do this alone.

[Mallory holds her hands together on her lap.]

I proved my resilience to myself, that's for sure. And I feel like the healing never stops.

[Daytime. We see Charlie who has auburn hair that has been tied in a bun. She's wearing a pink winter coat with dark black trim and dark black pants. She walks through the woods.]

[Charlie] In accessing services, no one ever asked me about human trafficking, and in fact, for a long time, I didn't even realize that's what had happened to me.

[Onscreen text: Charlie. Charlie, now wearing a mauve windbreaker and a floral-patterned headband, sits outside in front of a treelined area and leans against a tree.]

When I had a practitioner put the pieces together and understand me as a whole, it made a world of a difference in the care I was receiving.

To be able to walk with people and services who deal with human trafficking has been life-changing for me, because I was able to take that part of my life out of the shadow and bring it into the light so that I could heal. And it's not a perfect journey.

[Inside a house, Charlie stands at a window and looks out at the woods below. Next, Raine stands outside during the day.]

[Raine] I don't think we're ever really done our healing journey. It's continuous, it's layered.

I first had to get sober, and then I had to take a look at relationships and boundaries and the dynamics of growing up in a home with addictions present.

And it's a continuous thing that you have to do and look at and heal.

[Raine sits on a beach near a river and burns a braid of sweetgrass.]

We have a responsibility to be mindful of how we work with people who are survivors of human trafficking, to be mindful of, like, what is your family doing?

Are you openly having a conversation with your kids about consent and safety around that?

[Text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: If you or someone you know may be a victim or survivor of sex trafficking, call the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-833-900-1010. The phone number is emphasized in a green font.]

[Music.]

[PS18-96/4-2025E-MP4]
[ISBN 978-0-660-75689-9]

[The Canadian flag appears in red and black next to the words Public Safety Canada and Securité publique Canada.]

[The word Canada appears in a white font with a red and white Canadian flag blowing in the breeze above the letter 'a'.]

Hear from Survivors about risk factors

While trafficking can happen to anyone, there can be factors that traffickers look for when targeting their victims. The following video features real testimonies from Survivors of sex trafficking, highlighting some of the potential risk factors from their lived experiences.

Transcription

[Text appears in a white font over a black screen. Onscreen text: The following video contains coarse language and topics that may be distressing to some audiences including sexual exploitation, drug use, and violence. Viewer discretion is advised.]

[The background is now blue with a white font. Onscreen text: The following video contains testimonies from survivors of sex trafficking and their family members. The words 'survivor,' 'sex trafficking,' and 'family members' are emphasized in a green font.]

[Onscreen text: They've shared their experiences to help Canadians understand the problem of human trafficking in this country. The words 'human trafficking' are emphasized in a green font.]

[The background is now light blue. Text appears in a white font inside a dark blue box. Onscreen text: Who's at risk of sex trafficking? The words 'sex trafficking' are emphasized in a green font. Onscreen text: Brenda. Brenda has light brown hair. She is wearing a black blazer over a floral print top and wears earrings. She sits at the foot of a bed.]

[Music]

[Brenda] This can happen to anyone, like this happens to rich people, this happens to poor people. It happens to educated family members, to non-educated.

It's not prejudice to anybody or any place or anything.

[A hanging ornament has several strands with decorative beads attached to small bells, casting a shadow against a wall. The bells have staggered heights and slowly rotate in the breeze. Onscreen text: Augusta. Augusta has curly auburn hair and a nose piercing in her left nostril. She wears a long-sleeved grey sweater. She sits in front of a window.]

[Augusta] He knew that I wanted to look after my family. He knew that I wanted to be self-sufficient, and I wanted to pay for school, that I had all of these, like, aspirations of being financially stable, because that's really, really hard to do.

[Augusta sits at a small table, looking out a window, with her chin resting on her hand. Her smartphone and a pair of glasses sit atop the desk.]

I didn't really think of it in a sense of like, oh my God, he sees the fact that I'm vulnerable, he sees this as an in. It didn't cross my mind once.

[Blurred city lights sparkle at night. Onscreen text: Mallory. Mallory has brown hair. She has a piercing in her cheek. She wears a black beanie and a green puffed vest. She stands outside at night.]

[Mallory] I thought I was just a sex worker who met the wrong guy, who got myself in a shitty situation, who met some really crappy people, and I was just lucky to get out of it.

[ Mallory gets her hand tattooed. The tattoo artist is a man wearing glasses with tattooed arms and a beard.]

I was a perfect target, a perfect target. I had no family that was regularly checking up on me at that point in my life, I could disappear and nobody would notice.

It was probably one of the easier targets for him. I was insecure, I was uneducated, I didn't really have any skills and he fed into that.

He was-- he is a predator and I was the perfect prey for him.

[Mallory nods.]

That was hard for me to accept that he knew what he was doing.

Like, it's easier for me to think that I set this up so easily for him, like this was my doing and that's what he groomed me to walk out thinking, is that it was still my fault. And... I still struggle with it some days.

[Onscreen text: Charlie. Charlie has auburn hair that has been tied in a bun and a floral print headband. She wears a yellow shirt with the image of a bee on the front. She sits for an interview in a kitchen. She's drawing images of a house with a black marker on a pink piece of paper.]

[Charlie] I was trafficked between the ages of eight and around 14, 15.

From ages zero to six, I was in about four different homes. And then from six to 11 is when I was with my granny, my grandparents divorced. Like as the different family members were coming in and out of my life, that's when the trafficking started and my granny had no idea.

[Daytime, logs burn in a fire. Onscreen text: Raine. Raine has black hair and wears glasses. She wears a denim jacket, beaded earrings, and has a piercing in her septum and lip. She stands near a wooded area.]

[Raine] I would run away from the group homes because it was literally like a bed and your food. But there was no love, there was no belonging, there was no connection to the workers. There was-- like, it was missing heart, like it was just a job to some people and so I ran to the streets because it gave me a sense of belonging. It gave me a sense of power.

I was 12, so from 12 to 16 I was in Child and Family Services and... slept on the streets, I was homeless.

My drug of choice was methamphetamines. My substance use wasn't like out of control addiction at that point, I think it was more just coping with the pain, but in order to be homeless and on the streets, you turn to drugs and alcohol to support-- to help deal with that trauma.

[Music]

[Text appears in a white font on a blue background. Onscreen text: While sex trafficking can happen to anyone, traffickers tend to unfairly target people with unmet needs who have faced systemic injustice. The words 'sex trafficking' are emphasized in a green font.]

PS18-96/1-2025E-MP4
ISBN 978-0-660-75687-5

[The Canadian flag appears in red and black next to the words Public Safety Canada and Securité publique Canada.]

[The word Canada appears in a white font with a red and white Canadian flag blowing in the breeze above the letter 'a'.]

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2026-04-01

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Described Videos: Hear from Survivors of Sex Trafficking

Hear from Survivors about warning signs

Hear from Survivors about how traffickers target victims

Hear from Survivors about how they escaped

Hear from Survivors about risk factors

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