Audio files:
May 27 at 10 a.m. at Trent University Durham Greater Toronto Area
Please note that you must submit a signed copy of the Informed Consent waiver to stuckintraffick@trentu.ca before you can participate in the walk.
Download the form to your computer, and open using Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat to fill and sign the form, then submit via email. Alternately, you can print, fill and sign the paper form, and scan or take a photo of your signed form to submit to stuckintraffick@trentu.ca.
Register for the walk or Donate to Durham Victim Services
The event will be an all-day experience consisting of a walk, community resource fair, and guest speakers.
Opening statements will take place on the Trent campus at 10 a.m. to kick off the walk. All participants and dignitaries will meet in front of the Trent Durham Campus Building B, where opening remarks will take place.
Participants can choose to follow either a 6.5 km route through downtown Oshawa before returning to campus or a 2 km walk around the Trent Durham campus. Both walks will be narrated for your convenience. Throughout the walk, participants will make strategically placed stops to highlight how human trafficking occurs in our community. Following the walk, join us back at the Trent Durham campus for a series of presentations, guest speakers, and community resources all geared toward educating the community about human trafficking. This is sure to be a valuable learning and community engagement event that you will not want to miss.
After completing the walk, join us back on campus for afternoon events. A community resource fair will take place in the Building A Atrium to provide information booths and community resources about human trafficking. This community resource fair is an excellent way to get more information about what services are available in Durham Region, and for community members to be able to connect with resources aimed at supporting human trafficking survivors and their family members. The following is a list of community partners who will be present at the community resource fair:
- Bethesda House
- Catholic Family Services Durham
- Denise House
- Dnaagdawenbag Biinnoojiyag
- Durham Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC)
- Durham Youth Services
- Herizon House
- Region of Durham
- Victim Services of Durham Region
Throughout the afternoon, there will be a series of guest speakers presenting in Room A121 who will be discussing human trafficking and responses to human trafficking in more detail. A full schedule of guest speakers will be available before the event.
Those who do not want to participate in the walk are still welcome to join the community resource fair and speaker series on campus.
Route Options
Main Walk, 6.5 km
At approximately 10:30 am, registered walk participants will commence the walk portion of the fundraiser. The walk is a self-guided audio tour around the City of Oshawa with opportunities to learn about human trafficking. There will be two routes planned for the walk, one full route and one accessible/shorter route. The full route begins at the Trent campus, moves along Thornton Road South north to King Street. Participants will follow King Street to the intersection of King and Simcoe Street. During this, participants will hear about general hot spot locations for human trafficking and how human trafficking happens, with particular attention to the key stages of human trafficking. Participants will then turn onto Simcoe Street and follow the sidewalk to the intersection of Simcoe and Gibb Street. The last leg of the route follows Gibb Street back to campus.
Shorter Walk, 1.5 - 2 km
The second, shorter route begins in the same fashion, but only circles the Oshawa Civic Center along Gibb Street and Thornton Road before returning to the Trent Durham campus. Participants doing the shorter walk will receive the same general content as the longer walk, but not as a self-guided tour. Tour guides will be assigned to each group to discuss the various aspects of human trafficking along the route.
Project Background
This walk was developed as a result of a third-year Policing and Community Well-Being (PLCW) course that was offered for the first time in the Spring 2022. The course, Problem Solving in Diverse and Complex Communities (PLCW 3007H) focuses on developing key problem-solving and collaboration skills necessary to address wider community safety and well-being issues. Currently, this course focuses specifically on human trafficking in the Durham Region. Students work directly with the Durham Region Police, Ontario Works, Victim Services, and the Region of Durham to propose recommendations on how best to respond to human trafficking. Solutions that were proposed by students ranged anywhere from GIS mapping tools, hotel staff training, Indigenous-specific training for police officers, and a social media campaign for vulnerable teenagers. We are pleased and proud to be able to incorporate the work of our students by adopting the #StuckInTraffick hashtag created by Jacob Trubecki as part of the social media project he completed with his partner Alexander Lesage in PLCW 3007 in 2022.
This course highlighted the necessity of human trafficking interventions in the Durham region. It was clear that human trafficking is a complex, pervasive issue that is not well known by the community. The issue requires a collective effort by key stakeholders in the community: police services, victim services, educational institutions, and citizens. As a result of this class, one of our fourth year PLCW students, Robyn Dombroski, secured a placement to work with program coordinator Dr. Amy Spendik to develop this walk and educational event. Our goal is to continue the partnerships between the Policing and Community Well-Being program and Durham community partners.
For more information on the Policing and Community Well-Being program, please see the links below or follow us on Instagram @plcwattrent.
Registration and Donation information
Registration for this event is free. An optional $40 plus tax ticket covers an event T-shirt and donation to Durham Victim Services. Individuals wishing to receive a walk T-shirt must register by May 1, 2023. We welcome registrations after May 1 until May 20, but we cannot guarantee a t-shirt. To register, click the registration button at the top of this page. As part of the registration process, Trent University requires all participants are to sign a liability waiver. This is required to participate in the walk.
All proceeds from the fundraising walk and daytime events will go to Durham Victim Services. If you can’t attend and would like to donate, you may do so by clicking the donate button at the top of this page. It will redirect you directly to our fundraising page at Victim Services Durham.
If you would like a tax receipt, please make sure to donate on Durham Victim Services website, by clicking the donate button at the top of this page.
Get Involved!
Learn more about how human trafficking appears in our community, what you should be aware of and what you can do to help.
What is Human Trafficking?
Human trafficking is the "recruitment, transport, or harbour of a person through means of violence, threats, coercion, or abduction for the purpose of exploitation" (People's Law School, 2014). Exploitation can be sexual, forced labour, or slavery.
The key to human trafficking is tactics used to groom vulnerable individuals, usually by way of some promise of better work, more money, and a way out of poverty. This grooming process is bolstered by tactics used to confine and restrict the victim’s ability to leave. This requires the use of coercion tactics often in the form of threats and actual physical violence, psychological manipulation of the victim, and restricted access to support networks.
To learn more about warning signs, stages of human trafficking, and who is at risk, visit the Victim Services Durham website.
Policing and Community Well-Being (PLCW)
The Policing and Community Well-Being program is designed to shape the skills of tomorrow’s policing and helping professionals in Canada. At Trent, you can prepare to be part of a transformation that keeps society healthy and secure by taking advantage of Trent’s partnerships with social service, mental health, and policing agencies across Ontario. The program provides students with hands- on experiences that put your course learning into meaningful practice and give you an edge in the job market by solidifying social networks and enhancing future career development.
As part of our community engagement efforts, PLCW works to form partnerships with the community to fight for solutions to social issues that threaten our communities, like human trafficking. The program focuses on the conditions that create crime and social disorder, and what needs to be addressed to fix them. Experiential learning is at the heart of this program, and we aim to provide students with essential employment readiness skills they can use once they graduate.
This program offers a number of unique courses such as the Social Determinants of Health, Community Problem Solving, Problem Solving in Diverse and Complex Communities, Policing Drugs and Drug Users, Indigenous People and the Police, Mental Health and Addictions in the Community, Prisons and Punishment, and the option to do an experiential placement or independent research project as part of the honours degree option. The #StuckInTraffick walk is just one example of an experiential learning opportunity our students have been able to participate in.
Learn more about the Policing and Community Well-Being program, download the informational program brochure, or direct any questions to policing@trentu.ca.
Additional Resources
Human Trafficking Hotline | A dedicated line that’s confidential and open 24/7
Phone: 1-833-900-1010
Community anti-human trafficking service providers, including specific supports for Indigenous people
Durham Regional Police Service Human Trafficking Unit
Phone: 905-579-1520 ext. 5600
Durham Regional Police Human Trafficking Hotline
Phone: 888-579-1520 ext. 4888
Durham Region Victim Services
Phone: 1-888-579-1520 ext. 3400
Durham Region Human Trafficking Coalition