Laval first focus for youth protection

Project aims to tackle sexual exploitation

The Quebec government will spend more than $3 million over the next five years on different measures aimed at protecting youth, starting with those being sexually exploited in Laval, it announced on Tuesday.

The umbrella project, titled Prévention Jeunesse, will support five communities in Quebec to help them deal with different issues endangering local youths.

The first part of the project will tackle the sexual exploitation of young girls in Laval, mainly by establishing a coordinator to help communication between police, social workers and other officials working to fix the problem.

The project will deploy different teams in Laval’s streets, schools, métro stations and youth centres, at a cost of $625,000 over five years.

“The government is using every resource possible to ensure the safety of our youth and prevent further sexual exploitation,” Public Health Minister Lucie Charlebois said in a statement on Tuesday.

The four other areas that will benefit from the program were not identified on Tuesday. It’s intended to be a “flexible” program that can be deployed quickly in communities once a problem involving young people requires additional help, the government said.

“The government not only acted quickly on a worrisome and immediate situation in Laval, but it also put in place a province-wide program that will answer other specific problems in different regions in Quebec depending on their needs,” Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux said in a statement.

Five teenage girls were reported missing from the Centre jeunesse de Laval earlier this month, causing some of their parents to speak out against the larger problem of young girls being lured into prostitution by pimps in the area. According to Laval police, 33 teenage girls who were reported missing from the centre in 2015 were sexually exploited.

On Tuesday afternoon, Laval police reported that another teenage girl, 15-year-old Bianca-Taylor Martin-Bouchard, has been missing since Sunday. She was visiting her grandmother when she ran away.