Thank you, Madam Chair.

My name is Dr. Wanda Polzin-Holman, and I'm the clinical director at Little Warriors. On behalf of the vulnerable children and caregivers we work with, I want to thank the committee for providing the opportunity to participate in this important study. Within my testimony today, I will focus on Little Warriors' perspectives and on the problem of coercive control, the need for reforms and ways to better protect survivors.

Little Warriors is a not-for-profit national charitable organization focused on the awareness, prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse. Since 2008, our team at our centre outside Sherwood Park, Alberta, has created programs that have transformed the lives of thousands of children, adolescents and families from across Canada who have experienced child sexual abuse.

Little Warriors' evidence-based, trauma-informed treatment program at the Be Brave Ranch is the only program of its kind to offer intensive, specialized, multimodal treatment to children between the ages of 8 to 17 who have been sexually abused and are survivors, as well as their caregivers. As the needs in this area of child sexual abuse unfortunately continue to grow, we also have an evidence-based educational workshop, Prevent It!, that was created in conjunction with researchers at the University of Alberta with the aim to teach adults about child sexual abuse.

We continue to research areas of mental health, trauma treatment, addiction and adverse childhood experiences as these issues relate to child sexual abuse. At Little Warriors, we work with various stakeholders as well as a scientific and clinical council to ensure healthy outcomes for the children and families with whom we work.

We consistently demonstrate high, reliable change and recovery rates, highlighted by our ongoing third party independent outcome measurements. Research relating to our programs demonstrates a social return of an investment of 11:1 as this crosses systems of child and family services, education, health, crisis prevention and criminal justice. Research highlights that upwards of one in four girls and one in six boys experience an unwanted sexual act before they turn 18, and recent reports indicate that over the past five years, online sexual luring of Canadian children is up 815%.

We define issues around coercion in the context of child sexual abuse, obviously highlighting that children cannot provide consent for any type of online or in-person sexual abuse.

Coercion occurs when children are encouraged or manipulated and forced to do something for sexual access. Of note, this coercion occurs in the hands of adults as well as other children and youth at times. At Little Warriors, we unfortunately see children who've been harmed through intrusive, exploitative and traumatic sexual activities. We see this in various forms, including online, where there is a lack of clear controls and where sites encourage children to become involved with potential offenders and perpetrators. This happens in person as well; research shows that 90%-plus of the time, their offender is someone who is well-known to them.

Some recommendations that we would like to have considered are barrier-free supports across the continuum of care for children who have been sexually abused. Ironically, clinical supports are sometimes more easily accessed for offenders than for survivors.

A second recommendation is revisiting laws that continue to protect offenders, such as non-disclosure agreements and minimal sentencing. Short sentences without accountability often allow for reoffending, and data shows that approximately 29% of child sexual abuse offenders are reconvicted of a new offence in adult court within five years of their original conviction.

As well, we recommend laws that require accountability for social media and online predatory websites.

Fourth is an increased earlier intervention relating to awareness of child sexual abuse and coercion as well as human trafficking of children and youth. More awareness and support are needed for marginalized individuals and communities where there are higher percentages of people impacted.

Fifth is for the government and parliamentarians to ensure that survivors of coercion have full access to support through victim services programs. This can be done by making it easier for individuals to donate to charitable organizations and by providing financial support to organizations—like Little Warriors—that invest in prevention efforts and work with survivors of coercive abuse.

Thank you for your time. I am happy to answer any questions, and I look forward to working with all of you to address these concerns.