Winnipeg police have laid the first charge of human trafficking in Manitoba against a 38-year-old woman accused of forcing a younger aboriginal woman into sex work. (CBC)

A Winnipeg woman has been charged with human trafficking, the first time such a charge has been laid in Manitoba, police say.

Theresa Peebles, 38, has been charged with three counts of trafficking in persons, forcible confinement and assault. She remains in custody.

Police were called to a disturbance Tuesday involving Peebles and a 21-year-old aboriginal woman on Aikins Street in the city's North End.

Upon investigating further, police say they found that earlier this month Peebles had befriended the younger woman, who is from northern Manitoba and was staying at an aboriginal women's shelter at the time.

Police allege Peebles confined the woman in her house and gained control of her property, including her identification documents, and forced her to work as a sex trade worker — keeping all of her earnings.

Police also allege Peebles assaulted the younger woman and twice prevented her from escaping.

"The best way to describe it [is] we have an individual whose human rights have been violated to an extreme," said Winnipeg police Const. Jason Michalyshen.

Generally, people think of human trafficking as something that occurs to foreigners who are brought into Canada illegaly from abroad.

"People think that people are being transported from one country to another country for the purposes of working and sweat shops and things like that," he said. "In this particular case, it becomes very localized [when] you know it's happening in our own backyard."

Human trafficking has been outlawed in Canada since 2005.