MPP calls for special squad to combat sex trafficking

Girls as young as 11 being forced into prostitution, Tory says

Ontario is in the grips of homegrown human trafficking, says a veteran Tory MPP, who is calling for the creation of a provincial task force on sex slavery.

Laurie Scott, the member for Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock, says women and girls as young as 11 years old are being forced into prostitution here and they are not newcomers to the country looking for a better life — they are Canadian-born.

“I’ve heard stories of girls being targeted at the mall food court, the parking lot at their high school or a house party they attended with friends,” she told the legislature last week.

“This province is home to the largest number of domestic human trafficking cases, where victims are born and raised right here in Ontario,” said Scott, who presented a non-binding motion calling on the government to form a special team dedicated to rooting out human trafficking.

It would be similar to the existing guns and gangs unit, in which police officers, Crown prosecutors and social workers work together as a team from beginning to end of an investigation.

“Through this combination of expertise, the task force achieves the dual purpose of apprehending criminals and assisting victims,” Scott said in the introduction to her motion, which passed with all-party support.

Asked whether the passage of the non-binding motion meant a task force would be established, a spokeswoman for Community Safety Minister Yasir Naqvi said the government would continue to work with its partners “to combat this very serious issue.”

Scott said it’s also important to coordinate support for women and girls escaping exploitation.

“One aspect where a provincial task force would be immeasurable would be its ability to help facilitate the creation of safe houses solely for the purpose of sheltering human trafficking victims,” she said.

MPPs were told how pimps frequently move prostitutes up and down the Highway 401corridor both to meet demand and to make police detection much more difficult.

“Young women are lured through personal relationships, systemically isolated from the family and friends, psychologically and physically abused by those who they trusted and in some cases loved,” said Scott.

Human trafficking was recently front and centre at a legislative select committee on sexual violence and harassment against women. Scott is a member of that committee.

Among those that appeared before the committee was Katarina MacLeod, a former prostitute whose agency, Rising Angels, deals with women, many of them younger than 18, trying to escape that life.

“From what I see working on the front lines it is getting worse . . . it is really exploding,” she told the Star.

MacLeod said she is hearing of more and more women moving from hotel to hotel, in many cases not even knowing what city they are in.

She agreed a specialized team “fighting for these girls” is needed.

Several police services in the province have vice squads that deal with human trafficking and informally share information. York Regional Police is recognized for its work on human smuggling, especially in dealing with sex trade workers.

Det. Sgt. Peter Casey said the force has not arrested a woman on solicitation charges in the past seven years — but it does throw pimps in jail.

There is “huge” money to be made from sex, said Casey.

“Let’s put it this way, if you are a drug dealer . . . you can only sell that kilo of cocaine once, but if you are a pimp and have a number of young vulnerable women you are exploiting, you can exploit them over and over and over again, day after day.”

Experts said a woman working in the sex trade can earn $280,000 a year. And that often goes straight into a pimp’s pocket.

The Ministry of Community Safety says it has provided about $1.4 million in funding to 11 projects since 2003 to help police combat human trafficking in Ontario.