Rage and empathy

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This article was published 24/04/2025 (484 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new documentary about the prevalence of human sex trafficking in western Canada aims to enlighten and empower.

Winnipeg plays a central role in Butterfly: Into the Maze of Human Trafficking, a feature-length film highlighting the lived experiences of survivors and advocates.

“It’s a gateway, it’s a really important place,” Montreal-based filmmaker Viveka Melki says of the focus on Winnipeg. “They’re going from Winnipeg to Calgary to Edmonton to Vancouver, this is the route that the victims are being moved.”

Butterfly — which premières Thursday and is available to stream online for free via Telus Originals — focuses on the stories of three women from B.C., Alberta and Manitoba who were trafficked as children and teens by strangers, family members and while in foster care.

This is the third film Melki has produced about sex trafficking in Canada, a national issue she’s been covering with equal parts rage and empathy since meeting a victim for the first time six years ago.

Healing is a major theme in her latest doc, with its title referencing the metamorphosis of a butterfly.

“It’s astonishing, the human capacity for resilience and courage and the way we find light after all that,” Melki says.

Prior to the film’s release, Raine Seivewright was feeling apprehensive but hopeful.

“I haven’t really talked about that piece of my story in a long time, but I think it’s important for others to see that there’s a life outside of human trafficking because sometimes it can feel so far away to reach milestones in life like higher education, employment and purchasing their own home,” says Seivewright, who is Métis and lives in Winnipeg.

Seivewright entered Manitoba Child and Family Services when she was 12 and placed in a group home where she was exposed to human trafficking and was sexually abused until she was 17. (The failings of the child welfare system are another recurring theme in Butterfly.)

Seivewright went on to become an advocate for victims of trafficking, but stepped away from the work following negative experiences with the media and academia.

She agreed to share her story with Melki because the filmmaking process didn’t feel exploitative or transactional.

Butterfly opens with a trigger warning, contact information for help lines and a disclaimer about consent.

Due to the sensitive subject matter covered, Melki and her production company, Melki Films, operate within a framework of living consent.

Subjects are able to rescind their participation at any time during filming or even after a project is released. They also receive an honorarium — something that’s uncommon in documentary filmmaking — and are provided access to support workers if needed.

“The value of the story is not only how you had the interview, but how you treated those people for the 10 years after. We don’t just come into people’s lives and leave,” Melki says.

To contact survivors, she went through front-line workers and “guardians” who knew the women’s stories and were able to vet her intentions and approach.

In Winnipeg, Grandmother Chickadee Richard put Melki through the ringer before facilitating contact with Seivewright.

Richard, a kookum and Anishinaabe elder from Sandy Bay First Nation, played an important role in Seivewright’s healing journey by sharing her traditions, teachings and language.

“And reminding, not just me, but so many ikwe women in the community of just how sacred we are,” adds Seivewright.

Richard is included in the documentary along with Kyra Wilson, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, and Mitch Bourbonniere, a community activist with the Mama Bear Clan.

Melki hopes Butterfly helps viewers understand the pervasiveness of sex trafficking in Canada. She also hopes the documentary inspires change within the child welfare system.

“We can do better now that we know better, but let’s not pretend it doesn’t exist because it’s a real problem, it’s happening within the system,” she says.

Seivewright hopes the film is a beacon for other victims and survivors; as well as an education on the impact of colonization and poverty on Winnipeg’s long history of human trafficking — an ongoing issue that disproportionately affects Indigenous women and girls.

“It’s politicians, police officers, it’s someone’s dad, someone’s uncle who’s purchasing (sex from traffickers),” she says.

“This is what’s going on within our borders and we can educate our children, protect them and let them understand and know that they are sacred and they have the power to practice boundaries and demand respect from other people.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com