VP Children and Youth/Global Affairs

Michelle Abel

Michelle is a recognized expert in Familial Trafficking and Abuse with an extensive knowledge of adverse childhood experiences and coercive behavior. She has committed much of her life to advocate for the exploited, marginalized, and oppressed. She is dedicated to ending human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.

In her earlier life, Michelle attended Laurentian University and the University of Toronto. Afterwards, she worked as an educator, in banking, and for a major Canadian railway before devoting her full-time attention to her advocacy work.

Since the age of 19, Michelle has been involved in women’s support and empowerment groups, assisting women and children in human trafficking, domestic violence, poverty, and charity work both in Canada and in the Caribbean Countries. For the past 15 years, Michelle has provided direct support to victims, survivors and parents of victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

Michelle summited an affidavit in a court case where an Ontario Superior Court justice dismissed a constitutional challenge to Canada’s sex work laws, saying that the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) does not violate sex workers’ Charter rights.

Michelle collaborates with various international nonprofit organizations to advance the rights and protection of women and children.

Michelle is currently working with a United Kingdom University on a research project to understand the impacts of adverse childhood experiences on vulnerable community groups.

In 2022, Michelle founded Bridge2Future, a Canadian non-profit organization, with a primary mission devoted to research, advocacy, and policy advice concerning generational trauma, intimate partner violence, and commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.