The Nova Scotia NDP offers another amazingly innocuous ingenious plan to improve health care if it wins the provincial election on 9 June. To reduce chronic disease rates, it will set up two ongoing gabfests—a council and a task force—and it will “work closely” with medical professionals. The sheer genius of NDP leader Darrell [...]

A British judge went out of his way to denounce “honour” crimes in a case involving three children of Pakistani descent being cared for by a non-Muslim family. The children’s mother is in prison for setting her sister-in-law’s house on fire in a dispute involving alleged violations of family honour. The father [...]

A report prepared by the Council of Europe reveals that murders of women by family members are more prevalent than previously thought.  The report was discussed at a meeting in Istanbul.
The draft report calls for immediate action to deal with what it describes as the growing problem of honor killings. British member of parliament John [...]

Marty Van Doren, RCMP officer and human trafficking co-ordinator for Ontario division, says that underage aboriginal girls make up some 90 percent of visible sex trade workers in Canada.
And make no mistake about it, most prostitutes are lured or forced into the life, he said.
“Are they victims? — yeah, absolutely,” Van Doren said.
The most [...]

So says Baroness Sayeeda Warsi (at right), a British Muslim peer, Conservative MP, and Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action.
PC SENSITIVITIES must not block efforts to protect women from forced marriage and violence, a leading Muslim peer said yesterday.
Sayeeda Warsi believes “white liberalism” – the belief people cannot talk about such matters because [...]

Royal Hamel of the Guelph Mercury’s Community Editorial Board says, “Bravo to the brave Miss California”:
The United States is embattled in an escalating culture war on the issue of same-sex marriage. If the battle plays out as it did in Canada, many Christians and many churches will run for cover instead of speaking clearly what [...]

RCMP last week arrested Savita Singh, a 43-year-old Guyanese woman, together with three Ontario residents, on charges of conspiracy to violate immigration laws by smuggling two Guyanese into the United States.
Four years ago, she was convicted in a US court on similar charges.
The Canadian charges are similar to trouble Singh faced in Maine in 2005.
According [...]

The Salvation Army in Canada produced this video to raise awareness about sex trafficking. It is anticipated that the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics will increase demand for the services of prostitutes and, therewith, demand for human trafficking victims—i.e., sex slaves.
Salvation Army is sponsoring a night of art and performance to fight modern-day slavery at [...]

A mountain of evidence has accumulated indicating that children living with step-parents are at far greater risk of abuse than those living with biological parents. The Times of London columnist Camilla Cavendish wonders why British child-protection authorities are ignoring the elephant in the room.
The Cinderella Effect is the name given to analysis in Canada, the [...]

Brian McConaghy is head of the Ratanak Foundation, a Christian Canadian organisation fighting sex trafficking of little girls in Cambodia. He recently spoke at an anti-human trafficking conference in Toronto. I was very moved by his speech, which is posted at Aim4Asia. Here is a snippet.
In the late 18th early 19th century [...]

The federal government is giving the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs $100,000 to educate and raise awareness about human trafficking.  According to the Winnipeg Free Press report, this is the first money Ottawa has ever spent on the problem.
It is the first time Ottawa has spent anything to combat human trafficking, a growing problem in Canada [...]

Police in the southern African nation of Botswana have smashed a human trafficking ring that sent 1000 victims as far away as Canada.  Foreign business consultancies were used as fronts for smuggling slaves across international boundaries.
Fourteen people have so far been taken into custody for questioning in Gaborone, Botswana police chief, Assistant Superintendent, Selebatso Mokgosi [...]

CBC reports that four cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Nova Scotia, all in Windsor, right next to my home of Falmouth.
Nova Scotia’s chief public health officer, Dr. Robert Strang, said Sunday the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg confirmed late Saturday that four young people in the province are recovering from “relatively mild” [...]

Victor Malarek has written two books on the global sex trade, one about the supply side—women involved in prostitution—and a just-released volume about the demand side—their customers. He found that booming demand for paid sex has spawned huge increases in sex trafficking and forced prostitution.
Men who hire women for sex, he says, would prefer that [...]

The crown and defence have agreed that Angela Kuehl, 27, of Ottawa should be sentenced to one year of house arrest and two years of probation for smothering her newborn infant and hiding his corpse in the trash. The judge did not immediately agree with their recommendation and will render a sentence in August.
She [...]