100 men arrested in child sex trafficking investigation

Over the last four years an Ontario police force has tried to curb the practice of men paying for sex with underage girls by having undercover officers pose as child prostitutes online.

On Friday, York regional police announced that their operation, dubbed “Project Raphael,” resulted in the arrests of 104 men allegedly looking to buy sex from children.

Det. Sgt. Thai Truong, of the force’s human trafficking team, said no girls were harmed in the operation in which officers advertised sex services online as girls between the ages of 13 and 16.

Police have successfully arrested traffickers in the past who force children into the sex trade, Truong noted, but the prosecution is arduous on the victims. “The biggest challenge for us when we’re dealing with prostituted children is that enlisting their co-operation is very, very difficult,” Truong said at a news conference north of Toronto in Aurora, Ont. “So we’re trying to take the onus off them as best we can and go after the men that are driving this industry and the men that are searching and purchasing our children.” Truong said the York force has a threepronged approach to human trafficking: targeting the traffickers themselves who force women and girls to perform sex for money, rescuing the victims and stopping the demand for sex with children. He said there were hundreds of men who responded to undercover officers’ online advertisements and most of them stopped communicating when they found out they appeared to be dealing with underage girls — but 104 men didn’t stop. The arrested men came from all walks of life, Truong said.