Human trafficking survivors shouldn't be on the hook for fraudulent student loan debt, organization says

Project Recover, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to pulling human trafficking survivors out of debt, says it's currently working on a case involving a female who was abducted from Sault Ste. Marie and trafficked in Toronto. 

The survivor is trying to pursue a post-secondary education, but can’t get a loan due to prior provincial government debts that were fraudulently obtained by her traffickers in her name. 

Richard Dunwoody, the Sault-born executive director of Project Recover, is backing Spadina-Fort York MPP Chris Glover’s private members motion from December 2020 that would allow for provincial fines and outstanding Ontario Student Assistance Program debts to be forgiven for survivors of human trafficking.

“Somebody that’s trafficked and has no control, shouldn’t be not only liable for debt that they didn’t incur or derive benefit from as a result of a criminal activity, they should also be allowed to move forward in their life,” Dunwoody said.      

Project Recover enlists former banking executives on a volunteer basis to alleviate debt for victims of trafficking. The not-for-profit has helped 167 human trafficking survivors in getting their debts erased since November 2019, but so far, no fraudulent government debts have ever been cleared by the not-for-profit.

Dunwoody has worked with banks, telecommunication companies, car rental companies, property managers to create a process to get rid of the debts on behalf of Project Recover’s clients. He says there hasn’t been a discussion about alleviating government debt for human trafficking survivors at either the federal or provincial level, despite Project Recover's attempts to engage politicians at both levels of government.  

“They haven’t set a process up. There is no remedy for this,” he said. 

Dunwoody and some of his colleagues in the financial sector have come together to establish The Survivors Fund in order to help survivors with education and housing needs.  

“We are raising money, and we are putting them through school, and we are paying their education - but I’m going to be honest, it still irks me that the government can’t quickly turn around and do the right thing,” he said.

According to Dunwoody, the human trafficking survivor abducted from the Sault is currently residing at a safehouse in Toronto, and is looking to come back home and resume their post-secondary education after being trafficked for about three-and-a-half years. 

Dunwoody says he reached out to the constituency office of College and Universities Minister Ross Romano on behalf of the human trafficking survivor from the Sault, but was turned away by one of his staff members.

“I figured it was a shoe-in. You can’t get any better than a constituent that lives in the minister’s own riding, and their answer is you’ve got to deal with the ministry - the constituency office doesn’t deal with these type of things,” said Dunwoody. “If that’s what happened to your daughter, that’s what they would be telling you.”

Dunwoody says there’s nothing preventing Glover’s fraudulent debt forgiveness motion from being included in recent anti-human trafficking legislation, introduced on National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, and passed at Queen’s Park.  

“When the evidence can show that they’re trafficked and this is fraud, don’t pursue the debt. The banks don’t do it,” he said. “I mean, you can’t hold somebody liable for a criminal activity, right?”

According to Project Recover, human trafficking survivors possess about $28,000 in debts fraudulently obtained by their traffickers.