Frequently asked questions

Yes, everyone is welcome to contact the hotline. You don’t need to be in an emergency situation to use the hotline. We get a wide range of callers: people currently in a trafficking situation, those looking for support to leave a trafficker and survivors trying to access services after they’ve left. We regularly hear from family, friends and community members who are concerned about possible trafficking situations. Social service providers also reach out to us for help supporting people in their care.

If you are unable to call or chat yourself, and you would prefer to connect through someone you trust, we encourage friends, family, or service providers to get in touch on your behalf.

Phone calls to the hotline are answered in French and English, and live interpretation is available in more than 200 additional languages, including 27 Indigenous languages. We can connect you to a tele-interpretation service and continue the conversation in your preferred language at any time. The tele-interpretation service is covered by the hotline’s confidentiality policy.

Chat is available in English and French. For other languages, call the hotline at 1-833-900-1010.

A trained response advocate answers every hotline call or chat. They listen without judgment, work with you to develop a safety plan, identify options to access support, and can connect you to service providers if that’s what you want.

All communication with the hotline is strictly confidential, and you are never required to give us your name or other identifying details. We will never share your information without your explicit permission, unless required by law. We will not tell anyone else that you have or have not called the hotline. Our response advocates will review confidentiality during the call and, if we are required by law to share information, you’ll be informed, guided and supported during the process.

Read our confidentiality policy

Disconnections can happen for a number of reasons:

• You’ve navigated away from an active chat, refreshed the webpage, closed your current tab, opened a new tab or navigated to a new browser or app
• Problems with your internet connection
• The chat was inactive or non-responsive for five minutes, prompting us to close it for your safety

If you were disconnected, please start a new chat and let us know that you were disconnected. After confirming your safety and that we are speaking to the same person, we will pick up from where we left off.

The hotline is not able to transfer calls to specific hotline response advocates. While we can’t guarantee that you’ll speak with the same advocate from a prior call, every member of our team is trained and equipped to provide you with the help you need.

Send us a written request that includes the following details:

• Your full name
• Your case number
• The date of your call or chat
• Why you’re requesting access

Please note that, for security reasons, we will not click on any links included in emails, and we can’t receive emails with attachments or images. Please tell us everything we need to know about your situation in the body of your email.

We’ll only follow up with you if you have asked for our help by phone, chat, email or webform and you have given us your contact information and explicit consent to contact you. You can’t provide consent for us to contact someone else. If you are concerned about a victim or survivor who can’t contact us directly, get in touch for tips on how to safely share information about the hotline or discuss other options for support.

Please tell us everything we need to know about your situation in the body of your email.

The hotline collects identifying information when it’s necessary to help you access services. We never share data or information that can be used to identify you or your situation without your consent.

As part of our efforts to end human trafficking in Canada, we generate reports using anonymized, high-level data from the hotline — such as the province someone is calling from, whether the call involves sex or labour trafficking, and general demographic trends like gender. We are extremely careful to ensure the data can’t be linked in any way to any specific person.

You can find local services through our national referral directory. This Canada-wide resource features emergency, transitional and long-term services offered by our partner organizations. The directory also includes agencies that offer training, education, awareness and volunteer opportunities for the general public.

Access the national referral directory

The hotline is not a government, investigative or law enforcement agency. We will not contact the police or any other government agency without your consent or unless we are required to do so by law.

We are funded by Public Safety Canada, a department of the Government of Canada, and by other donors. While a portion of our operating funds comes from the government, we are not a government entity, nor are we an immigration, investigative or law enforcement agency. The hotline is operated by the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, a non-governmental organization and registered charity. Importantly, we do not share caller information with the government or any other entities without your explicit consent, unless the situation requires reporting.

We do, but international callers may be referred to outside agencies. If you’re outside Canada, please see the Global Modern Slavery Directory for a list of anti-trafficking resources in more than 145 countries.

We don’t have volunteer roles at the hotline; our response advocates are all paid professionals with extensive training. That said, there are other ways to get involved in the effort to end human trafficking in Canada. We encourage you to browse our national referral directory to find allied organizations in your community that are looking for volunteers.

We welcome any feedback about your experiences contacting the hotline. Email us directly or use our feedback form. Please note that, for security reasons, we will not click on any links included in emails, and we can’t receive emails with attachments or images. Please tell us everything we need to know about your situation in the body of your email.