About Us
The Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking (OCEHT) is a volunteer-led, community-based network that brings together local non-profits, healthcare professionals, law enforcement, and social service providers. We are dedicated to a unified strategy for preventing and addressing human trafficking throughout Ottawa and its neighboring districts.
The Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking (OCEHT) primarily functions as a coordinating body rather than a direct service provider. We focus on unifying Ottawa’s community response by aligning diverse sectors and professional organizations. Our core initiatives include fostering expert collaboration, facilitating knowledge exchange, streamlining referral pathways, and delivering community-wide education. These efforts ensure that individuals facing or vulnerable to labor and sexual exploitation are accurately identified and provided with proper systemic support.
Operated as a volunteer-led collective, OCEHT leverages the deep expertise and active engagement of our members and community partners. This model allows us to create significant impact through collective action and advocacy, relying on the dedication of our contributors rather than a large staff of paid employees.
Our Story
History of OCEHT
The Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking (OCEHT) traces its roots to the period prior to 2010, when it operated as a committee within Persons Against the Crime of Trafficking in Humans (PACT-Ottawa), a volunteer-based initiative focused on increasing public awareness of human trafficking and strengthening community responses.
As awareness of human trafficking increased and a broader range of service providers, community organizations, and other stakeholders became engaged in the issue, the Coalition’s role began to evolve. Around 2010, with the support of key community partners, including St. Joe’s Women’s Centre, OCEHT transitioned from PACT-Ottawa and developed into an independent community coalition. This evolution allowed the Coalition to place greater emphasis on building a coordinated, multi-sector response to both sexual and labour exploitation.
The transition also represented an important shift from informal community networking toward a more structured coalition model. OCEHT became increasingly focused on convening organizations across sectors, sharing knowledge and resources, strengthening referral pathways, providing education and training, and building the capacity of the community to identify and respond to human trafficking.
As the Coalition has evolved, so too has its approach to community participation. Earlier requirements for involvement have become more inclusive, creating greater opportunities for individuals, organizations, professionals, volunteers, and people with relevant expertise to contribute to the collective effort to prevent human trafficking and strengthen Ottawa’s response. This broader approach reflects OCEHT’s recognition that addressing human trafficking requires collaboration across sectors and meaningful participation from diverse members of the community.
Mission and Guiding Principles
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The mission of the Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking (OCEHT) is to prevent human trafficking and strengthen community responses for individuals affected by sexual and labour exploitation through education, collaboration, advocacy, prevention, and coordinated action.
OCEHT’s work is grounded in a survivor-centred and trauma-informed approach that recognizes the importance of safety, dignity, choice, autonomy, and respect. The Coalition acknowledges that effective responses to human trafficking must recognize the complexity of individuals’ experiences and avoid approaches that further marginalize or disempower those who have experienced exploitation.
Collaboration and partnership are central to OCEHT’s work. Human trafficking cannot be addressed by any single organization or sector. Meaningful and sustainable responses require cooperation among community organizations, service providers, law enforcement, healthcare, education, government, and other community partners, alongside the knowledge and expertise of people with lived experience.
OCEHT is also guided by principles of equity, inclusion, community accountability, and shared responsibility. The Coalition works to create opportunities for diverse perspectives to inform community responses while recognizing that vulnerability to exploitation can be shaped by broader social and systemic inequities.
Through education, awareness, prevention, advocacy, and capacity building, OCEHT seeks to move beyond crisis response toward long-term systemic change—reducing vulnerability, strengthening community knowledge, improving coordinated responses, and contributing to safer and more supportive communities for individuals affected by human trafficking.
Referrals & Support
Providing referrals and support services for persons affected by trafficking – including exit planning and linkage to supports.
Mandate and Community Role
OCEHT positions itself as a community-based, volunteer network composed of local non-profits, service providers, law enforcement partners, health and social services, and community representatives. Its core activities include:
Monthly OCEHT meetings and working groups help members share trend information, identify service gaps, and plan collective initiatives.
Training & Indicators
Training service providers and community members on human trafficking indicators and trauma-informed response protocols.
Sector Coordination
Fostering coordinated sector responses so that individuals can access timely and appropriate resources across organizations.
Community Engagement & Initiatives
Historically, OCEHT has played a central role in advancing awareness and capacity-building in the Ottawa/Gatineau region — for example:
Hosting train-the-facilitator sessions and focused training during Human Trafficking Awareness Month (January) and other regional campaigns.
Producing Annual Reports on Barriers to Accessing Services, documenting challenges survivors face when engaging local supports and highlighting system gaps to inform development.
A Message from our Chair
As Chair of the Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking, I continue to see the strength, dedication, and compassion that exists across our anti-human trafficking community. The work being done by frontline agencies, survivors, educators, law enforcement, health care providers, Indigenous organizations, schools, housing supports, and community partners is making a meaningful difference in the lives of individuals and families affected by human trafficking.
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At the same time, we must recognize the reality that Ottawa has increasingly become a regional hub for traffickers, impacting not only our city, but communities across Eastern Ontario and beyond. Human trafficking is complex, adaptive, and deeply rooted in underlaying factors connected to homelessness, poverty, gender-based violence, addiction, mental health, racism, colonialism, and systemic inequities. No single organization or sector can respond to this issue alone.
Now more than ever, collaboration matters.
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We must continue working together, sharing knowledge, strengthening partnerships, and supporting each other’s efforts to ensure individuals affected by trafficking receive compassionate, trauma-informed, and coordinated care. This includes supporting not only survivors, but also children, youth, caregivers, and families who are navigating the devastating impacts of exploitation.
Our collective responsibility is to create a community where prevention is prioritized, survivors are supported without barriers, systems work together instead of in silos, and those who exploit vulnerable individuals are held accountable.
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The Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking remains committed to bringing partners together to strengthen our community response, amplify survivor-informed practices, and advocate for meaningful systems change. Through collaboration, education, and coordinated action, we can build a safer and more responsive community for everyone.
Thank you to every organization, frontline worker, survivor leader, and community member who continues this important work every day. Together, we are stronger.
