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A proposed law that would send people convicted of trafficking in children under 18 to prison for no less than five years seems likely now to become law. On September 30, MPs voted 239-46 to approve private member’s bill C-268 on third and final reading.

“I was absolutely delighted,” Manitoba Conservative MP Joy Smith, who sponsored the bill, told Today’s Family News. Since tabling C-268 earlier this year, Smith has presented petitions containing the signatures of more than 14,000 Canadians who agreed with her that the punishment needed to fit the gravity of the crime.

University of British Columbia law professor Benjamin Perrin helped Smith draft her bill. He credits the faith-based community for playing “a significant role” in expressing to MPs their moral outrage on hearing about cases of children – both foreign and domestic – who had been lured into prostitution.

“The behind-the-scenes effort involved not only police organizations, victims’ groups and First Nations representatives, but also significant leadership from the Christian community,” he said. “It’s a positive thing to see such a broad cross-section of our society getting behind an issue like this in a non-partisan way.”

Perrin said the fact that there is currently no mandatory minimum sentence for human trafficking has resulted in lax sentences being imposed. In one case, a person convicted of the crime spent only one day behind bars after time already served was factored in.

“What Bill C-268 does,” he said, “is provide specific deterrence, which means the individual trafficker who was convicted will be separated from society for a period of time and their victim will be assured that they will not be bumping into their trafficker in the grocery store or as they’re trying to move on with their life.”

C-268 must still be passed by the Senate before it can become law.

“The prospects are good,” Smith said, “but we need to have pressure from the public saying that the Senate committees have to get busy on it and get it done. We could have an election right away and it would die. And we can’t afford that to happen. They need to not let it languish in the Senate. Some bills languish for years.”

Smith is especially anxious that the law be enacted prior to the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, which is now only about three months away. Based on the experiences of past international sporting events, grassroots groups are concerned there could be a major influx of trafficked children and women for the purpose of prostitution.

Smith is now working on developing a comprehensive national strategy to combat human trafficking.

“We need an umbrella plan that deals with the law and also with the sheltering and rehabilitation of victims,” she said. “When you rescue someone, they’ve got to have some place to go, they’ve got to be able to be counselled, and they’ve got to have a vision for how they can get out of this. There are many aspects to it.”