In the darkest time of Timea Nagy’s life, a police officer and an immigration officer were there for her.
Now, more than two decades later, her dream sparked by those relationships is coming to life with Heroes Rising, a national awards ceremony meant to honour those unsung heroes who help victims and survivors, and inspire the next generation.
Nagy escaped human trafficking in 1998 and spent months hiding in Toronto, terrified she would be deported back to Hungary or found by associates of her traffickers. Toronto police officer Mike Josifovic was the first person she trusted with her story, sharing how she responded to an ad looking for Hungarian babysitters in Canada and ended up in strip clubs and being sex trafficked.
Thinking back to that initial meeting, she remembers Josifovic asking how she was doing.
“Nobody had asked me how I was doing ever in my entire life,” Nagy says.
For once, her stomach unclenched. She didn’t feel scared.
She later had a similar experience with the immigration officer who helped her stay in Canada.
She turned to both men during good times and bad, including when her trafficker was acquitted of sexual assault. Sometimes she would call late at night just to hear their voices on their office voice mails.
Nagy remembers the first job she got on her own, at Medieval Times, and how proud she was. The first person she called was Josifovic.
“I always had a quarter on me so I can call Mike and tell him how I’m doing,” she says.
When Nagy got married, it was Josifovic, her “surrogate father,” who walked her down the aisle.
In the years since her escape, Nagy has become one of the most outspoken survivors of human trafficking in Canada, addressing political leaders, training first responders and working to rescue other survivors. This work includes her former organization in Hamilton, Walk With Me, through which she responded day and night to crisis calls, helped trafficking victims and ran a safe house.
Among those she helped were victims of the Domotor-Kolompar criminal organization. Numerous members of the ring were ultimately convicted in what was Canada’s largest forced labour human trafficking case, in which victims were recruited in Hungary and brought to Hamilton where they were forced to work without pay or freedom.
It was through this work that she learned her story was not unique. All over the country, first responders and those working on the front lines of health care and social services are making sacrifices and working hard behind the scenes.
Nagy had the idea for the awards for years. Walk With Me previously held an awards ceremony at which community supporters were honoured, including The Spectator’s Nicole O’Reilly, who was cited in 2012 for work on human trafficking and survivors in Hamilton.
But Heroes Rising is much bigger. It will hand out more than 16 awards honouring first responders and front-line workers, including police officers, firefighters, paramedics, mental health crisis workers and an emergency room doctor of the year. They can be nominated by the victims and survivors they helped, or those who “witnessed something incredible” or “saw something beautiful.”
Winners are selected by a volunteer advisory committee that includes survivors and victims of crime, along with serving and retired first responders. The tentative plan is for the first televised awards ceremony to happen in spring 2025 at the Hamilton Family Theatre Cambridge.
Nagy said she wants to start to hear from community members about potential nominees now.
“I want to hear those stories,” she added.
Heroes Rising already has sponsors and partnerships, including celebrity partners such as Canadian actor Enrico Colantoni and host Rick Campanelli.
The hope is to recruit other celebrities, including those who have family members who work as first responders. Nagy has her sights set on Ryan Reynolds, whose father and brother both served as RCMP officers.
Nagy says organizers want diverse representation, including building partnerships with Indigenous and Black officer associations. They are also fundraising, including looking for businesses, corporations or individuals who wish to support the cause.
Heroes Rising is going public May 1, on national first responders day.
Nagy recognizes policing has drawn more public criticism in recent years. That is part of the reason she thinks the time is right for the awards.
“I think it’s important to say, every single profession has bad apples and unfortunately for some reason when a police officer gets in trouble or steps out of line it becomes front page,” she says.
She is not diminishing the effects of bad policing, but says good work needs to be held up as a beacon.
“First responders are the glue to our society,” she said.
Her hope is the awards inspire the next generation of heroes and perhaps serve as a pilot to be replicated in other countries.
Nagy is planning a special human trafficking-themed award to be named after David Hartless, a former Hamilton police officer who helped develop the service’s human trafficking program and supported Walk With Me. He died in 2021.
She also acknowledged the mental health toll on first responders, and said Heroes Rising already has front-line workers on board.
Brandon Evans is a recently retired firefighter who founded Fire to Light, a research and development organization focused on mental fitness for firefighters. It works to better equip firefighters to manage the trauma they witness. Suicide rates among firefighters are double those in the general population, he noted.
Evans says the fact that the awards come from survivors is what makes them so meaningful.
“There is a lot the public doesn’t hear, firefighters are very humble,” he said. “It’s a calling, not just a job.”
That means firefighters show up when needed, whether they’re on- or off-duty.
“To help is in our nature,” he said.
Samantha MacNeill, is a registered nurse and sexual assault examiner in Peel Region with more than 20 years of experience working with victims and survivors of sex trafficking and intimate partner violence. She is involved in many advocacy groups, and is an adviser on the Peel Anti-Human Sex Trafficking Strategy.
As public awareness of human trafficking in Canada grew over the last decade, too often survivors were “exploited for their stories,” she said. This includes paying them to tell their stories at conferences or training, but then not involving survivor leaders in shaping practices.
“It’s disgusting,” she said, adding that it’s traumatizing for survivors to be led out just for the “shock factor.”
Instead, MacNeill is part of an ethical movement pushing to involve survivors in decision-making and implementation. The fact that Heroes Rising is survivor-led is key.
MacNeill says the most important thing any first responder or front-line worker can do is create a safe space, not force someone to disclose what is happening. Many of the human trafficking victims she meets don’t even realize they’re being trafficked.
MacNeill is often the first person to ask if they are OK. In that moment, the thing they might need most is something to eat, or somewhere to sleep. MacNeill does a lot of training for first responders and said this is biggest lesson.
“Taking off my nurse hat and … connect(ing) with the person on a human level,” she said.
Heroes Rising is “another opportunity to raise awareness,” she said.
For nurses, in particular, she said the awards mean a lot, especially at a time when many in the profession are burnt out due to COVID.
“Heroes Rising is so important because it elevates the profile everyday heroes, people who can’t work from home,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to thank those who don’t ask for thanks.”
For more information, including to make a donation, visit heroesrising.ca.
Nicole O’Reilly is a reporter at The Hamilton Spectator. noreilly@thespec.com
