Second Annual Symposium – Combating Child Sex Trafficking and Online Child Sexual Exploitation: Disrupting the Status Quo

Child sex trafficking and online child sexual exploitation are, by any measure, massive, rapidly growing, and extraordinarily destructive manifestations of a public health crisis that is local and global, unfolding through personal, private and intimate familial and relational contexts as well as through highly organized, globally active organized criminal organizations. Combating this form of child sexual abuse has accelerated almost everywhere, with national and regional anti-trafficking strategies in place as well as prevention and intervention programs and services active and still being launched across jurisdictions.

This symposium is designed to bring together, by invitation only, professionals and survivors from across sectors to explore how we can do better in responding to CST-OCSE. We aim for new collaborations to emerge, for ensuring that we are collectively in tune with the ever-evolving landscape of this crime, and that our work and our actions are informed by those with lived experience. The symposium will provide updates from the frontlines through research and stories, engage with a profound new challenge presented by the integration of AI in CST-OCSE, and offer space for collective discussion on what we can do.

This is the 2nd annual symposium, hosted by TMU, and we will continue to host the symposium each year. This year, we will also present TMU's initiatives, led by the Faculty of Community Services, to strengthen the knowledge and human resource infrastructure active in this battleground.