February 22 marks National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, helping to bring awareness to the magnitude of modern day slavery in Canada and abroad.
Journey to freedom: Surviving Human Trafficking with Timea Nagy
Join the Student Rights and Responsibilities Office (SRRO) for a virtual session with Timea Nagy, a human trafficking survivor, international speaker and social advocate for change. Ms. Nagy will share her story, speak about how human trafficking happens, and review signs to watch out for of someone who is being trafficked.
Ms. Nagy’s memoir, Out of the Shadows, is available at ncLibraries.
Join us on Zoom on February 22 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Register here: Microsoft Forms
More about Timea Nagy:
Human trafficking survivor, author, speaker and social advocate, Timea Nagy, immigrated to Canada in 1998. Her nightmare unfolded in Toronto in that same year after arriving from Budapest, Hungary in the hopes of finding meaningful employment. The daughter of a Hungarian policewoman, Timea was held (For three terrifying months) at the hands of traffickers and was forced to work in the sex industry. Thankfully, she escaped and started life anew. Ten years later, Ms. Nagy founded ‘Walk with Me‘, a non-profit organization to assist victims of human trafficking and law enforcement agencies.
Between 2009 and 2015, her organization helped over 300 victims and over 500 human trafficking-related investigations throughout Canada. In fact, Ms. Nagy played a key role in Canada’s largest human trafficking investigation led by the Canadian Federal Police (RCMP Niagara Falls Detachment) known as project OPAPA.
Ms. Nagy provided training to numerous agencies in Canada, the U.S. and Europe – reaching over thousands of people within various sectors such as Law Enforcement, Financial Institutions, Hospitality, Real Estate, Tech companies and much more.
Ms. Nagy’s work and story has been featured in FORBES Magazine, CNN, NBC, Fox News, The Social, and all the major Canadian media outlets.
Her work was recognized by Queen Elizabeth the II, Prime Minister of Canada and the Attorney General just to name a few.
Her memoir, Out of the Shadows, was released in 2019 May and become a National Bestseller in 6 days of releasing.
Support at NC:
Niagara College is committed to supporting those who have been impacted by sexual and gender-based violence. NC has a dedicated Sexual Violence Prevention & Response coordinator, Elysia Dardarian, who employs a trauma informed and survivor centered approach to supporting students impacted by this type of violence.
Please contact Elysia at [email protected] if you would like support in the following ways:
- Making a formal complaint to the college regarding an incident of sexual or gender-based violence
- Assistance with reporting to the police
- Reviewing any accommodations that may be needed
- Creating a safety plan for physical and emotional safety concerns
- Referring students to services on or off-campus
- Learning more about sexual and gender-based violence and how to be a supportive friend
- Scheduling Elysia for an information session on sexual and gender-based violence to your class, club, or department
Follow @consentiskeync on Instagram and check out NC’s Consent is Key Campaign for content on sexual and gender-based violence and information on events.
What is human trafficking?
Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, or holding victims, often to coerce them into providing manual labour or sexual services. Traffickers can pressure victims in a range of ways to get someone to do something that they are unwilling to do. It can involve physical force or threats of violence, but in many cases it doesn’t have to. Other forms of intimidation can be used, like threats of deportation, emotional abuse, manipulation, and abuse of trust or power. Victims can often be isolated from family and friends as well, and living and working in unsafe conditions can make it difficult to escape.
Human trafficking can be hard to spot. Victims are often forced to maintain a low-profile in public – which is why it’s so important to learn how to recognize the signs of someone being trafficked. By raising your awareness and knowing what to look for, you could help save someone’s life.
Human Trafficking Resources
www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/campaigns/human-trafficking
www.canadiancentretoendhumantrafficking.ca
www.canadianhumantraffickinghotline.ca
