B.C. businesses urged to spot trafficking, but experts warn of misguided campaigns, ‘moral panic’
Vancouver restaurants are being urged to take human trafficking training ahead of FIFA 2026, with the BC Restaurant and Foodservices Association (BCRFA) partnering with the Human Trafficking Prevention Network of British Columbia (HPTNBC) to offer seminars for workers this summer, positioning restaurant staff as extra eyes and ears during the tournament.
However, experts warn that well‑intentioned employers risk being pulled into a familiar “moral panic” that does little to protect the people most at risk.
Organizations that have studied trafficking around mega sporting events say the evidence does not support claims that tournaments like FIFA trigger a spike in exploitation — so, is the training necessary or advisable?
Why offer human trafficking training?
In an interview with Canadian HR Reporter, Ian Tostenson, president and CEO of the BCRFA, said the campaign came out of recent conversations with the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) and other stakeholders about the risks that come with a global event such as FIFA.
“They were talking about all the things that are not restaurant-related that an international sporting event will bring,” Tostenson says.
“You have things like fraud, and you have the potential for riots, you have the potential for demonstrations, and you have the potential for just a whole bunch of stuff that gets brought into the city as result of 300,000 people coming for FIFA.”
When human trafficking came up in those meetings, it became clear to Tostenson that many people in the industry – himself included – had only a vague sense of what the term “human trafficking” means. With more than 200,000 workers in B.C.’s restaurant sector, most of them women and from diverse cultural backgrounds, he adds, the industry has a responsibility to build basic literacy on trafficking and vulnerability.
Community-focused trafficking training
The BCRFA frames its training as a community‑minded effort to help staff notice when something is wrong, whether it involves trafficking or not.
“It is not the restaurant that necessarily is the human trafficker, but it could be somebody that is forcing a woman to do something like work extra hours, make extra money,” Tostenson says.
“We just want people to be somewhat aware of basic stuff, like, is there an employee or somebody in your restaurant that just seems to all of a sudden not seem to be acting properly, seems to be depressed, seems to be quiet, something has really changed in that life?”
Canadian HR Reporter has not viewed the two seminars being offered to Vancouver restaurant staff but did watch a hospitality-focused training program offered free on HTPNBC’s website. Along with modules on identifying “red flags” such as the ones Tostenson discussed, the training explains the demand side of the problem in hospitality, including high operating costs that drive employers to maximize profits through “flexibilization and other strategies” and relying on low-skilled labour, creating opportunities for traffickers to exploit.
Exacerbating these conditions is the difficulty attracting and retaining Canadian staff, increasing demand for migrant labour to fill low-paid and seasonal roles, especially in rural areas.
Torstenson stresses that the goal is to encourage employers to check in on staff if something seems off, not to turn managers into investigators.
“It may not be human trafficking,” he says. “But it is just a good thing to check in with your teammate to see if everything is all right.”
Mega events and the trafficking myth
While well-intentioned, human trafficking awareness campaigns may do more harm than good, say experts.
The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) Canada – a national organization that researches and advocates on trafficking and migrant rights – has been tracking claims about mega events and trafficking since the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
Looking at events from Athens 2004 to South Africa’s 2010 World Cup and several Super Bowls, it concludes there is no empirical evidence that trafficking for sex work purposes increases around large sporting events.
“The evidence does not show that there is any trafficking related to mega sporting events, including our own research here in Vancouver,” says Allison Clancey, GAATW Canada’s national director.
“During the 2010 Olympics here in Vancouver, our organization actually carried out research and found that that was not the case. This is supported by international research as well.”
Ann De Shalit
‘The familiar moral panic’
A 2025 GAATW Canada position paper on FIFA 2026 warns that “the familiar moral panic” about trafficking and sporting events is likely to escalate as matches approach in Vancouver and Toronto.
Clancey explains that the narratives persist in part because they fit a broader public discourse in which “trafficking is everywhere and everyone is at risk,” while also catering to law enforcement.
“Police enforcement around mega sporting events is more about targeting the sex industry than it is addressing human trafficking,” she says.
Ann De Shalit, postdoctoral fellow and adjunct professor at the University of Windsor, whose research focuses on trafficking, migrant labour and sex work, says this “proactive policing” model is central to how anti‑trafficking operations are sold to the public.
“Oftentimes, when people are identified as trafficking victims, they tend to experience the most severe penalties for it,” she says, including arrest and deportation.
She’s blunt in her assessment of the current FIFA‑linked restaurant campaign, calling it “worse than useless” because it contributes to the perception of trafficking that is "all around us" and a threat to everyone, rather than targeted at vulnerable groups that have no choices.
In response to the criticism, Tostenson said, “The campaign was designed with survivors of human trafficking with lived experience, and purely focuses on criminal activity.”
Look inward first: employment standards
For employers who want to respond meaningfully to trafficking and exploitation, GAATW Canada’s core message is to start with their own workplaces.
“[It’s about] not trying to see trafficking where it may not be, but for industries in the hospitality business to look at their own internal employment standards, how they treat their own employees,” Clancey says.
“I would ask that employers and restaurant owners just understand the issue better before signing on to these campaigns, like you would with any campaign.”
That can include scrutinizing working hours, overtime expectations, pay practices, use of recruiters, and the treatment of migrant and racialized workers – all factors that GAATW research identifies as increasing vulnerability to exploitation.
“Looking internally, cleaning up, looking at your supply chain, looking at your employment standards, your policies, your contracts, how you treat your employees — that is a lot of work,” she says.
“Unfortunately, it is just so much easier to turn outward and to adopt a campaign in a performative way.”
De Shalit agrees with the focus on the workplace, stressing that the most likely reason for serious abuse at restaurants is not a stranger at table eight – it is the employment relationship itself.
“Labour exploitation and abuse, they happen in the workplace,” she says, between the employer and the employee.
De Shalit points to wage theft and unsafe working conditions as common areas of exploitation in the hospitality industry, and urges restaurant owners to address these practices in their own operations first.
“Whether there is a big event or not, you should be concerned all year round if the conditions … are exploitative or abusive, and as an employer, you have 100 percent responsibility to ensure that they are not.”
