Edmonton airport opens ‘safe room’ to help human trafficking victims

Edmonton's airport has opened a dedicated space to help victims of human trafficking and others experiencing tragedy. CTV Edmonton's Nicole Weisberg reports.

Edmonton International Airport (YEG) has dedicated a room to help survivors of human trafficking, domestic violence, and other trauma or crisis.

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The room consists of couches, a bed, a kitchenette, and a full bathroom.

Users who are taken there by staff, who have been trained to recognize the signs of trafficking, will also receive fresh clothes, food, a phone and access to the internet, and be connected with community supports.

“It’s really looking for those signs, it’s accessing security or RCMP, and then having them intervene,” explained Erin Isfeld, the airport’s corporate communications manager.

The space was officially opened Wednesday, on the United Nations World Day against Trafficking in Persons, and given the Indigenous name “Kîsê Watotâtôwin,” which means sharing and giving kindness and compassion.

Officials at the opening ceremony said it is the second of its kind in Canada, after one was opened in Calgary. Calgary’s safe room has been so impactful, the airport is opening a second, according to Paul Brandt, the face of the Not in My City organization, which is working to eradicate human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Not in My City partnered on the project, as did Action Coalition on Human Trafficking Alberta, the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams, the Centre to Empower All Survivors of Exploitation, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

They say airports have a critical role to play in intercepting human trafficking, as victims are often moved through major airports.

“It takes an average of seven times for a trafficking victim to have the courage to step up and ask for help, so when they do, we have to be ready,” Brandt said.

According to Not in My City, human trafficking is a $180-billion industry worldwide. An estimated 40 million people globally are currently being trafficked.

“Between labour trafficking and sex trafficking – all forms of trafficking – it is a degradation of human rights and human dignity, and so the safe room provides an opportunity for a reset, but also that safety from traffickers,” Brandt said.

Leduc RCMP Insp. Kiel Samotej echoed the sentiment, saying, “It provides them that safe place to talk about what’s going on and how they ended up in this situation.”

On one of the walls of the safe room hangs a portrait of a featureless Indigenous person wrapped in a blanket.

When the piece was commissioned, artist Scott Laboucan was only told it was for a safe space.

“When I got here, it was so much more significant,” he told CTV News Edmonton on Wednesday.

The absence of facial features in his characters is symbolic of the loss of identity residential school survivors experience, he said, drawing a comparison with that experienced by trafficking survivors.

According to Not in My City, Indigenous people make up more than 50 per cent of trafficking victims in Canada.

Should an Indigenous person find themselves in the room, Laboucan hopes they are comforted by his artwork, from the familiar geometrics to the blanket.

“There’s blanket ceremonies. Blankets are gifted for graduates. So that importance (and) also that comfort, that warmth of being wrapped in a blanket. They’ll get emotional, like a release, or it’ll just be a silent strength, like I’m so happy there’s something in here that relates to me.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nicole Weisberg