Rockin’ it out for the cause

Captain Jim Vanderheyden enjoys writing and performing Christian songs.
Annie Gallant photo

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By Annie Gallant - Quesnel Cariboo Observer

Published: March 25, 2010 5:00 PM
Updated: March 25, 2010 5:27 PM


When Salvation Army Captain Jim Vanderheyden agreed to be a driver and provide musical entertainment for a women’s rally in Dawson Creek, he had no idea it would lead to a CD of his own songs.

Salvation Army’s Major Winn Blackman, who was the division commissioner at the time but who has since moved on to lead the fight against human trafficking for the Army, heard Vanderheyden rehearsing in the basement and asked if the song was his own composition.

“I explained I had several songs and would like to record a CD with proceeds to a good cause,” he said.

“She was under the impression the CD was farther along than it was.”

Vanderheyden agreed the fight against human trafficking was indeed a worthy cause.

Back in Quesnel, he scrambled to make the CD a reality.

“Thanks to the support and collaboration of drummer Lyle Tribe and Ontario producer and friend Paul Farrow, the CD was completed,” Vanderheyden said.

Farrow flew to Quesnel, with his laptop and all the recording software, and recorded Prisoners of Hope, The Truth isn’t Sexy.

“With Winn connecting the music to the cause, Farrow and his wife Ellie knew the promotional side,” Vanderheyden said.

“They are instrumental in promoting this cause and the CD to a worldwide level.”

Although statistics are difficult to come by, it’s believed more than one million people are trafficked every year around the world.

Estimates are that 800 women are brought into the Canadian sex trade each year by human traffickers with another 2,200 newcomers to Canada smuggled into the United States from Canada for work in brothels, sweatshops, domestic jobs and construction work. It’s widely believed only one in 10 victims in trafficking report to the police, so the numbers are likely much larger.

Women and girls make up 90 per cent of people sexually trafficked. Members of society who are most at risk are women, the poor, youth, widows and abandoned wives, orphans and abandoned children and those with histories of sexual abuse. Demand for sex is the number one factor driving the multimillion dollar trafficking business with poverty, high unemployment, domestic violence, discrimination against women, desire for a better life and a way to help their families driving victims to take a chance on the seemingly too-good-to-be-true opportunities.

Sometimes the terms prostitution and sexual trafficking are used interchangeably, but they are different. Trafficking requires an element of force, coercion, deception and exploitation (whereas this is not always the case for prostitution.)

Each victim of trafficking has their own unique story but some aspects are consistent. Traffickers may be male or female, family members or trusted associates and affluent and seemingly upstanding members of the community. Recruiters and traffickers are often women and sometimes relatives; almost always known and trusted by targeted victims, especially in the case of foreign nationals recruited in their own country for service in North America.

“I’ve heard stories of women, often very young, runaways, being offered a coffee and shelter only to be injected with drugs, then forced into prostitution to pay for their habit,” Vanderheyden said.

Even women who want to come to Canada for a better life, who then find themselves in the sex trade business because of lies told to them, don’t want to be sent home because now they’re usually addicted, shamed and still have no money. It’s a ruse and a trick to get them out of their country and into the sex trade, Vanderheyden added.

The proceeds from the sale of his CD will, in part, be used to support Deborah’s Gate, a safe house for women in the Lower Mainland where they have a chance to free themselves of that lifestyle.

However, the Christian rock CD is also Vanderheyden’s way to show that being a Christian is about good things and not about what you give up, but what you gain.

“The music shows Christianity is a joyful lifestyle,” he said.

“And by buying the CD, not only do you help the cause, you’re also more aware of the issue.”

To learn more about human trafficking

and to purchase a CD, visit www.thetruthisntsexy.ca