Our First Advocacy Win!

In an effort to offer young Canadians the opportunity to have their voices heard in the fight to end the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), I initiated an innovative public education campaign to persuade Air Canada to screen a youth-produced in-flight distinguished itself for providing tens of thousands of youth—including survivors and at-risk youth—with knowledge, skills, tools, opportunities to be co-leaders in the fight against CSEC. OneChild offers PSA that would warn against the legal, social, and humanitarian consequences of traveling for the purposes of CSEC. The campaign was youth-led, and required the circulation of a petition, garnering letters of support from law enforcement and other organizations, presentations in which I drew from my travels in Sri Lanka, and rallying a group of seasoned young activists to star in and produce the PSAs. In 2005, our efforts were rewarded when Air Canada agreed to our request and began screening two in-flight videos on domestic and international flights to a
viewership of over 22 million passengers- a video that has been used by law enforcement agencies and schools; and a campaign that has been hailed as a best practice by the World Tourism Organization’s Task Force for the Protection of Children in Tourism.
My pioneering youth campaign was solely responsible for the Canadian private sector’s first engagement on CST, and sparked Canada’s CST movement, influencing youth, government, law enforcement, travel/tourism, NGOs to collaborate for the first-ever nation-wide campaign raising awareness of
Canada’s extraterritorial legislation, reaching millions.