1822 East Mall | Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1 Phone 604 822 1208 | Fax 604 822 8108 | [email protected]

1822 East Mall | Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1 Phone 604 822 1208 | Fax 604 822 8108 | Perrin@Law.Ubc.Ca

----- Original Message ----- From: Perrin, Benjamin [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, February 20, 2012 01:15 PM To: Anwar, Shaila Subject: Case study as requested by Committee As requested by the committee - the Budapest case information. This is from pg. 44 of Benjamin Perrin, Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking (Viking Canada, 2010): A March 2007 email to the Canadian Embassy in Romania from a regional intelligence officer for the Canada Revenue Agency in Niagara Falls, Ontario, identified aspects of the problem. “I have read some dancer contracts and a couple of clauses really troubled me,” the officer wrote. According to her report, one clause stated, “[T]he club owners have the right to hold all ID until the terms of the contract are fulfilled,” while another required “that monies will be held until terms of the contract are fulfilled, less disbursements. These two clauses themselves smack of slavery.” Frederick Matern, one of Canada’s top immigration officials in Bucharest, replied in a detailed, but heavily censored, email obtained under the Access to Information Act. Among other things, Matern raised concerns about women from the region being brought to Canada to work as exotic dancers, including evidence of blatant deception by the contractors. “In order to conform to HRSDC [Human Resources and Social Development Canada] requir[e]ments,” Matern noted, “we are getting shown very different contracts by people seeking work permits. I suspect that the contracts that conform to HRSDC are nowhere close to the truth.” Indeed, in a case documented by the Canada Border Services Agency, a woman from Romania came to Canada under a work permit as an exotic dancer. Soon after arriving, she was reportedly “forced to do things that she did not wish to do ... was unable to take sick time when required ... [and] there were elements of coercion and threats against her from the bar owners and supervisors.” CIC officials subsequently found the woman to be a victim of human trafficking and offered her assistance. Benjamin Perrin Assistant Professor | Faculty of Law at Allard Hall The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus 1822 East Mall | Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1 Phone 604 822 1208 | Fax 604 822 8108 | [email protected] .

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