Healing the Indigenous Community from Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking

Through personal lived experience and as a Sixties Scoop survivor, Beatrice Wallace, from Muskowekwan First Nation, now dedicates her life as Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking (MSHT) Lived Experience Engagement and Inclusion Specialist with The Salvation Army.

Beatrice works with people with lived experience in the Indigenous community and anyone seeking healing, direction, and emotional and spiritual support to a life they were tricked or forced into, a life they didn’t create.

At a young age because of the trauma her mother experienced because of residential schools, Beatrice was in and out of the foster care system and adopted into a household that did not provide the nurturing, care, and support she was entitled to as a child.

Leaving her adopted situation, she went to live in an Indigenous Girls Home where people targeted her vulnerabilities for the purpose of exploitation. Beatrice shares her life story in the book ‘Wolf Woman, A Search for Identity.’

Beatrice shares her story to raise awareness about the exploitation of women and young girls. The circumstances these women face is forced upon them and beyond their control. Her goal is to offer a path forward and support them with hope and compassion.

“The Creator gave me a gift to use; my story is a gift to others and my voice is my truth. When I am supporting others, I connect them to their humanness and remind them that they are still a good person.”

Beatrice brings immense skill and capacity to the work of ending modern slavery and human trafficking in Canada. She offers wisdom, expertise, advocacy, and experience in developing programs and resources, raising awareness, and connecting with those exiting a MSHT situation in ways that those without a personal connection cannot.

“Being on the MSHT team with The Salvation Army allows me to provide feedback from my lived experience and to help free others from a life that is not their own. This role allows me to be an expert and not be seen as a victim,” Beatrice says.

“When I was 29 years old, I found God and that’s when I got out of that lifestyle. One thing that helped me was recognizing that I didn’t want my kids and my grandchildren to go through what I went through. That’s when I realized I don’t want that to live that life.”

In Canada, Indigenous woman and girls make up more than 50 percent of all sex trafficking victims, while representing just 4.3 per cent of the country’s population, according to the Canada Women’s Foundation’s report, “No More – Ending Sex Trafficking in Canada,” released in 2014.

In 2022, the Territorial MSHT Response and frontline MSHT Response teams helped 160 survivors leave their human trafficking situation, provided crisis support to 859 victims and survivors, provided 6,329 nights of housing and taught life skills to 446 survivors.

For more information about how The Salvation Army assists, supports and protects victims of modern slavery and human trafficking, please visit www.salvationist.ca/human-trafficking. If you suspect someone is a victim of human trafficking, call the Canadian National Human Trafficking Hotline at 833-900-1010.