It has been 15 years since publication of my first book. Over the years it has been a prodigious journey of developing my voice, expanding my reach, and, hopefully increasing my influence to do social good through my writing and speaking from the heart. I’ve stayed committed to speak truth to power, doing my utmost to retain the courage and humility to overlook the occasional pushback that I’ve felt from my writing, in my life and career. I’ve strived to always do the right thing and tell the truth, regardless of where the chips fall. That first book on policing brought me to the Prime Minister’s Office and a book signing in Centre Block of Canada’s parliament, and as far as Hong Kong talking about my views on Canadian Policing. I’ve now published over sixty articles, book chapters, and six books, each with a specific message and purpose. Every piece has been a different journey. I am eternally grateful to the people who have empowered me through encouragement and inspiration, and by allowing me the education, training, and platforms to continue developing my voice. It has been remarkable to eventually feel I could call myself an ‘author’ and receive the royalty cheques from my books. I’ve been reflecting more of late, on why I write, and it certainly has never been for money. I recently spent $4,000 to purchase copies of my books, so I could give them out and make them more accessible to the people I feel need the message that each manuscript intends. So, I met today with the Executive Branch, Writing Division of my Corporation, Bob Chrismas Consulting Inc. (Barb and I 
) and decided that all proceeds from my writing from today onward, will be given to charity. This year’s proceeds will go to Cancer Care and Research, as this scourge has claimed several friends and loved ones in my life. Thank-you ALL for reading my stuff; Bob C- Writing for Social Change.
4- My books
All of my books and novels
Interview on my titles
The Watch
New review of Dream Catcher
Fact In Fiction
NANCY WRIGHT
This instalment of Fact In Fiction features Dream Catcher: The Call Home by upcoming ‘mainstream’ Canadian novelist Bob Chrismas—criminologist (PhD), founding leader of Winnipeg’s newly established Community Safety Team and recently retired from 34 years in the Winnipeg Police Service. In this sequel to his first novel, The River of Tears (see JR 37.4), Bob sets the stage by fathoming the power of change: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man…” (Heraclitus, in the Epigraph). Dream Catcher not only exposes Human Trafficking’s reliance on negative change, but it also illustrates the exponential impact of positive change.
If you are interested in a view into sex trafficking in Canada
Dream Catcher book launch event
Thank-you all who were able to come out to my launch of Dream Catcher in the Art Space, with the MB Writer’s Guild today. It was great to share what I have striven for, and how my body of publications has progressed to raise awareness around social issues.
Dream Catcher release event
Dream Catcher, Sample- first 6 chapters
One pager for University of Manitoba
Coming soon. My labour of love for the past year. Dream Catcher: The Call Home
Paperback and Hard-cover now available
DIO Press landing page
DIO Press
DIO Press an equitable and socially-conscious peer reviewed publishing company
working with and for scholars and teachers to publish accessible and reasonably priced texts and monographs
Book intro:
Join Detective Jack Bondar and Dani Taylor on their continued journey to find her little sister Ali, abducted at 16 and missing for the past 14 years. This sequel to The River of Tears delves into the psyche of sex traffickers and their victims. It explores their internal and external conflicts and the trauma that trafficked people and their families endure. It also shows the post-traumatic stress that many police officers experience in their work. It is a story about our roots, and the way we all long at some point to come home.
Some early endorsements:
This sequel to The River of Tears continues the story of Dani Taylor and Detective Jack Bondar and their search for Dani’s trafficked sister Ali. The novel explores the trauma of the families of missing loved ones and the broad range of people working to counter trafficking and sexual exploitation of Indigenous women in North America. Young Indigenous women that are missing, trafficked, and murdered in Canada and the U.S. illustrate the prevalence of sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and violence directed against Indigenous women. Dani and Jack’s pain, caring, and compassion is evident throughout their search for Ali in the hope they will find her. The story illustrates the human dignity of family members, survivors, and those working to stop the violence. The novel points out that families and those working to counter trafficking suffer from trauma and like the survivors need to heal.
Dr. Sean Byrne, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Manitoba
***
As an effective story-teller, Dr. Chrismas sheds light on the tension between the vulnerable and police in Canada while tackling the complicated, harsh and shameful reality of human sex trafficking in Canada. Dr. Chrismas gives us a glimpse into a world where human rights abuses occur daily and locally. Prevention can only occur if we know what this world looks like.
Cathy Peters. Anti-human trafficking prevention educator beamazingcampaign.org
***
Dr. Robert Chrismas continues to take real life experiences and adapt them into accurate and thoughtful fictional portrayals of human sex trafficking in Canada. This novel provides a portrayal into the hidden and unknown sex trafficking that has taken place in our shipping and ports entering and exiting Canada. Chrismas should be applauded for brining attention to this uncomfortable reality.
Dr. Susan McIntyre President The Hindsight Group
Over 30 years experience as an internationally recognized expert, research and policy advisor in sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation.
***
In this evocative and important story, Dr. Bob Chrismas reminds us that the violent, misogynist world of human trafficking is not a distant problem. It is happening everywhere, all around us. The author knows this world—he has spent his career fighting it. Dreamcatcher is a story about the everyday heroes who are battling human trafficking. The story highlights the agency of those working for positive change, both inside and outside the industry.
Dr. Amber Fletcher, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology & Social Studies
Academic Director, Community Engagement and Research Centre (CERC)
University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, (she/her)
New book review on Sex Industry Slavery
WHOLE REVIEW:
The Canadian Criminal Justice Association
Book Review
CJCCJ/Volume 64.3 (2022)
Sex industry slavery: Protecting Canada’s youth
By Robert Chrismas
Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2020. 277 p.
Robert Chrismas’ Sex Industry Slavery: Protecting Canada’s Youth offers a unique contribution to the existing adolescent sexual exploitation and human trafficking discourse by presenting the author’s practical solution-based research using a comprehensive qualitative approach. Whereas much of the available youth sex trafficking research focuses on gathering headcounts of victims and providing ‘shock and awe’ estimates of the financial lucrativeness of the industry, Chrismas’ book helps to fill the persistent gap in effective responses to adolescent sex trafficking with first-hand perspectives of young sex trafficking survivors and the frontline service providers that are dedicated to helping them. The voice of each expert is qualitatively woven among the existing literature on this issue to answer Chrismas’ central thesis question: what can we learn from those working on the issue of youth sexual exploitation and from those most affected by it?
Although it is not explicitly organized using the United Nations’ “4Ps” pillars (i.e., prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnership), Sex Industry Slavery achieves its purpose by compiling the collective knowledge of youth sex trafficking victims, law enforcement, social workers, policymakers, and other advocates to address challenges across the entire 4Ps continuum. From identifying at-risk and vulnerable youth to extricating youth who are entrenched in a life of sexual exploitation, to prosecuting traffickers and bolstering comprehensive aftercare supports for survivors, the book provides practical solutions for governments, law enforcement, and frontline service providers working to address this issue. Importantly, Chrismas does this by highlighting the narratives and insights of his research participants to offer a data storytelling approach to the practical solutions offered throughout.
Chrismas’ introduction positions child and youth sex trafficking in the larger sphere of various interrelated social and justice issues, including child maltreatment, child sexual abuse, social disparity, marginalization, prostitution, organized crime, and basic human rights. This is important as child and sex trafficking is a complex issue that has roots in all these issues. The author provides an in-depth discussion about the vulnerability of children that are victims of child abuse early in life, along with how social disparity, opportunistic exploiters, legislative shortcomings, and ongoing debates about victimization and agency in the sex industry continue to perpetuate opportunities for children and youth to be sexually exploited in Canada.
Leveraging these points, Chrismas’ book spans several important topics on youth sex trafficking in Canada, including the unique vulnerabilities and experiences of Indigenous women and girls, the strengths and weaknesses of Canada’s anti-trafficking legislation, escaping the grip of entrenchment in the lifestyle of youth sexual exploitation, and recommendations for next steps at the government and community levels to effectively prevent youth exploitation, protect survivors, prosecute exploiters, and remove barriers to service through strategic interagency partnerships. These themes already comprise a sizable portion of the larger body of human trafficking discourse, however, Sex Industry
Slavery can provide a fresh, Canadian-centered, problem-solving perspective that is often missing from academic research on youth sexual exploitation. For example, much of the American literature on youth sex trafficking addresses the ongoing criminalization of young victims across the country. Many local and state government bodies, child protection ministries, and law enforcement agencies have only recently shifted their perspective on youth sexual exploitation away from the view that these youth are ‘juvenile prostitutes’ that should be criminalized, toward the understanding that sexually exploited youth are victims of abuse. Consequently, systems have been slow to respond to youth sexual exploitation. In Canada, however, child and youth sexual exploitation has been treated as a form of child abuse for nearly two decades, and so the need to advocate for these youth as victims is unnecessary. What Canada needs – and what Chrismas argues throughout Sex Industry Slavery – is to let the voices of experts and individuals with lived experience inform the development and implementation of a well-overdue action plan.
Sex Industry Slavery contributes to the larger body of human trafficking scholarship with its emphasis on the inclusion of stories and insights from survivors and other subject matter experts. As author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once said: “Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity” (Adichie, 2009). Through interviews with over sixty survivors of youth sex trafficking, Chrismas shares their raw and poignant stories, which serve to reiterate just how devastating and traumatizing sexual exploitation is for an individual.
These stories are critical to the discourse on youth sex trafficking as the available data both nationally and internationally on this issue does not adequately communicate the devastating impact on these youth, nor is it enough to solely serve as a catalyst for change among governments and systems. It often simply serves to inform rather than compel.
Chrismas’ research highlights the importance of telling the story behind the data to effect change. For example, a consistent underlying theme throughout Sex Industry
Slavery is that many survivors could have been protected from exploitation or saved from it much earlier if people or agencies knew what to look for and were able to respond. As Chrismas points out, “some survivors told gripping stories about how they could have been saved from trafficking and exploitation if someone in their care circle had recognized the signs and known how to intervene” (p. 124). Paying particular attention to the narratives of survivors is important, especially considering the persistent challenge of gathering accurate and reliable quantitative data that plagues research on human trafficking.
In addition to presenting survivor stories and insights to better understand and address youth sexual exploitation, Chrismas spends a considerable amount of time advocating for urgent action. He does not merely share survivor stories and insights from experts and practitioners as a way of lamenting all the challenges around addressing youth sex trafficking; instead, he compiles these perspectives into a full chapter of key findings and recommendations for responses that will lead to tangible impacts in the areas of prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnership. With a focus on community-based, multidisciplinary approaches to youth sex trafficking, Chrismas provides his reader with a comprehensive roadmap for change that includes calls for increased funding, improved access to treatment and aftercare supports for survivors, increased law enforcement capacity to investigate and charge exploiters, strengthened community collaboration and partnership, and enhanced education, training, and awareness across sectors and stakeholder groups. Although Chrismas’ findings and recommendations do not deviate from much of the existing research on youth sexual exploitation, his research adds significant value to the growing – albeit slowly – body of Canadian literature.
Sex Industry Slavery is a worthwhile read for students, law enforcement officers, child protection workers, human trafficking advocates, policy makers, and any other stakeholder with an interest in understanding how to better respond to youth sexual exploitation. Anyone, regardless of their existing experience and expertise on human trafficking, can acquire new knowledge from the insights provided through Chrismas’ research.
CRYSTAL HINCKS (MA) FOURTEEN FIELDS INC. PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR (CALGARY, AB)
City News interview 25 January, 2022, on The River of Tears
Endorsement in the Journal of Community Safety and Wellbeing
Interview on The River of Tears
Interview on The River of Tears with Richard Cloutier, CJOB/Global News, done standing at Higgins & Main, in the heart of city’s core, ending 2021.
Book Review 2021-12-15 in the Journal of Community Safety and Wellbeing
Interview on CJOB/Global regarding a positive Appeal Court Decision that refers to my research.
Audio Vault (globalnews.ca) at 13 December, 2021 at 3:36:40PM (refers to my research and book)
Audio Vault (globalnews.ca) at 14 December 2021 at 4:36PM
UM Today Magazine
Indepth interview on The River of Tears with Rogers TV
