May, 30 2005 - 4:10 PM
VANCOUVER(CKNW/AM980) - Vancouver Police
are again warning parents to better communicate
with their daughters --to keep them from getting
lured into the sex trade.
Constable Tim Fanning is responding to a warning
about First Nations girls as young as ten being recruited
by pimps outside Grandview Elementary.
"Parents are the first educators, so everybody has to
be involved. you know, it takes a community to raise a
child --whether you live in the West side of Vancouver,
the East side of Vancouver-- anywhere in the city--
we go back to what we just talked about which is you've
got to educate your kids."
are those with low self-esteem and trouble at home.
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Pimp problem at elementary school
May, 30 2005 - 3:00 PM
VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980) - It's not news to them.
That's how Vancouver Police are responding to a warning
Constable Tim Fanning says school liaison officers are
doing their best to protect vulnerable children.
"We have a program in place --that we work with the
schools. If they have any sort of problems, we are all
over it. If there's a specific incident, we investigate it.
Anytime we're given the information, we act on it."
The principal at Grandview Elementary says drug
traffickers and sex-trade recruiters are bold enough
to come right onto school property.
Fanning admits those pimps often trick the girls by
pretending to be their boyfriends.
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Commentary:
Have the police lost their minds? This deplorable
attitude is why 67 women, mostly First Nations women,
have gone missing from Vancouver and an estimated
500 First Nations women are missing from across
Canada. Placing the onus onto parents to "communicate'
with their children" is absolute classist and racist crap.
You tell me if pimps were circling the privileged little
white children of the upper, or middle class on the Westside
whether this kind of classist, dangerous nonsense would
be the response from the police?
This "blame the victim" mentality is shocking and what
I want to know is how many of these recruiters and pimps
have been arrested, charged & convicted? Last I heard
sexual abuse and exploitation of children were indictable
offenses under the Criminal Code. Last I knew, children
deserved the right to go to school without having to run a
gauntlet of people waiting to sexually exploit them openly,
with police issuing bulletins, instead of doing their jobs to
stop these parasites.
I believe that school liaison officers probably are trying
to do the best they can, but the problems are embedded
in the Vancouver police department and society frankly.
First Nations girls and women across Canada are the
most marginalized citizens in this country. And this kind
of statement by the police contributes to the fact that
First Nations women are treated as though they are not
deserving of the protections other citizens receive and
in fact that they can be abused in any way from cradle
to grave. Many First Nations women don't even enjoy
the same rights as other women such as matrimonial
rights to property. When is this city and province going
to move away from our racist and classist treatment of
First Nations girls and women? Who is going to take
leadership on this issue and challenge the authorities,
such as the VPD, to provide the same rights to First
Nations girls and women in this city and province?
discussion is that other young women and men are
used as recruiters by adult pimps. This is done for
different reasons. Adults know that the watered down
Youth Criminal Justice Act and the authorities are not
particularly inclined to enforce too many breaches of
the Criminal Code, or even if they do, young people
will get away with that proverbial slap on the wrist,
in the guise of diversion. Youth know it too and some
of them are taking full advantage, because they know
there are no consequences to their behaviour. Adults
also use girls to befriend and recruit other girls into the
sex trade. They pick girls who themselves are vulnerable
and who may have been victimized, make them feel
special, give them drugs & alcohol, buy them some pretty
stuff (clothes, jewelry and other things) and then it's
pay back time. These girls in turn groom other girls
into the sex trade. And children are valued by pedophiles,
because they believe they are "clean" from disease and
they will pay more for that and unprotected rape (that is
what it is) of these children.
The fact that Vancouver has an open, thriving and
internationally known sex trade in children, filled with
First Nations girls, says to me that no-one in authority
cares enough to seriously tackle this problem. I have
worked with these girls and women, they need our love,
our care, our support to exit this shadow world of pain,
addiction, abuse and death. The younger they are when
they are introduced into the sex trade and the street life,
the earlier they are addicted, the earlier they develop
HIV, Hepatitis B & C, the earlier they die. They also have
babies, continuing the cycle of government care, broken
attachments, cognitive/intellectual issues and marginal-
ization through government intervention. Even if they
want to escape the life, the shame, humiliation and
guilt of the life they have been forced to lead leaves them
outside the margins of the mainstream, standing at the
window looking in, but lacking the skills and knowledge
how to be on the other side of the glass. We are the ones
who should feel shame, guilt and humiliation for the fact
that every day in Vancouver we are sitting by while children
are being raped and destroyed on our streets.
*****************************************************
Sex trade a 'reality' say experts
By Irwin Loy, 24 hours
Sex-trade recruitment is a reality at schools in all areas
of the city, says a support agency for sex-trade workers.
"Recruiting is happening in every school," said Kyla Kaun
of PEERS Vancouver. "We need to realize this is really
happening. Children are being targeted by predators to
get into sex work."
Kaun's comments come after the principal of East Van's
Grandview elementary last week told Vancouver city
council children in Grades 6 and 7 were constantly
targeted by sex-trade recruiters. Kaun says the average
age for entering prostitution is only 12 - and it's not just
restricted to lower-income neighbourhoods.
"Predators have absolutely no respect for social class.
It has nothing to do with poverty," Kaun said, adding
both parents and their kids need to get educated.
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