The founders of the newly formed South East Coalition Against Trafficking hope to bring awareness to the sexual exploitation going in our communities.

Chair Stephanie Klassen says Steinbach is one of the last communities in the province to have this type of group.

"Manitoba has a strategy to combat the sexual exploitation of children and that strategy started in 2008. Part of that is to have regional teams across the province in different communities that work on identifying exactly what exploitation looks like in their community and then addressing it in a way that is going to work for their community."

Klassen says it may not seem like there is trafficking or sexual exploitation going on in the Southeast, but this is the sort of behaviour that happens behind closed doors. She notes we don’t see prostitution taking place on our streets, but there may be certain houses that people know to visit or those that are exploited over the internet.

"Sexual exploitation happens when somebody is coerced, lured, or manipulated into sexual activity in exchange for something else. Often the thing that is being exchanged is drugs because if somebody is dependant on something like that, that is a really vulnerable point that somebody can exploit, but it is not just drugs, it can be money, it can be food, it can be shelter, it can be dreams, aspirations."

Alexandra Ross is the Secretary for the South East Coalition Against Trafficking. She notes often times exploitation of this kind happens between people that know one another and not by strangers. She says public awareness and support are very important in handling sexual exploitation in our communities.

"Our first few steps are finding interested people to come to the table and to network and to talk about what we see and experience in our own capacities. Let’s all come to the table and come up with what kind of awareness we want to bring and what kind of resources we can pool together and how we can address the issue in a way that makes sense for this community."

Klassen says so far interest has been very good with many residents and community leaders stepping forward to help. She says they hope to run a few events in the near future and may follow other communities in holding a grandmothers walk to raise awareness about trafficking and sexual exploitation.