-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- from: http://www.thestar.com/thestar/back_issues/ED20000125/news/20000125NEW01_NA-CH ILD25.html Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.thestar.com/thestar/back_issues/ED20000125/news/20000125NEW01 _NA-CHILD25.html">News Story: Canada a centre for child sex, re…</A> ----- Canada a centre for child sex, report says Increase in homeless children may contribute to more being bought and sold for sex By William Walker Toronto Star Ottawa Bureau Chief OTTAWA - Canada has become a world destination for people seeking children through the sex trade, says a major new report to be released today. ``Consultations with police, public health workers and primary school teachers show that Canadian children are being bought and sold for sex,'' says the 72-page report by the Canadian Council on Social Development, obtained by The Star. Today's report, entitled The Progress of Canada's Children into the Millennium, notes that the child sex trade is increasing, with an estimated 100 offences each day in Vancouver alone. ``A child sex trade exists everywhere in Canada, from large cities to remote logging camps. It happens in places that are too small even to have a name,'' wrote Jannit Rabinovitch, who contributed to the report. The council's wide-ranging report explores all aspects of the lives of children in Canada, including poverty levels, family life, nutrition and the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. The report finds that homelessness among children is increasing, and that may be contributing to the growth of the child sex trade. An official for Save the Children Canada, whose study of the child sex trade is cited in the council's report, said most men who come to Canada come from the United States. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ `A child sex trade exists everywhere in Canada, from large cities to remote logging camps. It happens in places that are too small even to have a name.' - Jannit Rabinovitch, who contributed to the report ------------------------------------------------------------------------ But many also come from Asian countries. And there is also regional travel within Canada for the child sex trade. ``A lot of people come to Vancouver for that. It's quite shocking.'' Sergeant John Ward, the missing and exploited children co-ordinator for the RCMP in Vancouver, said information about the city streets' ``kiddie stroll'' is now on the Internet, complete with prices, and that has fed into Canada as a tourist destination for child sex. Ward said Canada hasn't yet attained the reputation of Thailand and the Philippines. ``So is it well known? Yes, I'd say Canada is now well known for that, but not on the same scale as Asia. Not yet, anyway,'' he said in a telephone interview from the Vancouver RCMP headquarters. ``From the RCMP perspective I would say it's a problem that is growing with children being seduced into the sex trade, if I can use that term,'' Ward said. He said it's hard to track the number of children working in the sex trade because some are on the street using false names and others work in private homes or other indoor locations. ``The charges against men trying to buy sex from kids are up but we don't have the up-to-the-minute stats,'' he said. ``But this is a Canada-wide problem. It's not just in B.C.'' Save the Children Canada is working to create an outreach program for sexually exploited children across Canada. Fadi Fadel of Save the Children's Vancouver office, where the organization's study was conducted, said the estimate of 100 offences per day in Vancouver alone is the result of interviews conducted by the study's authors with social workers. The social workers encounter under-18 sex-trade workers in so-called ``trick pads'' in the city. ``In Canada, there is not attention paid (to the fact) that the problem even exists and we need to take action,'' Fadel said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Youth the fastest growing segment of homelessness population in Canada ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ``It's not a syndrome, it's evidence of problems in society like poverty and sexual abuse and drug abuse and the peer pressure of the recruiting process that goes on in schools,'' he said. ``We want to raise the awareness of this problem with the public and make people understand that it does exist.'' He said one of the recent boatloads of illegal Chinese immigrants in Vancouver contained mostly under-18-year-old youths that authorities feared were bound for the sex trade. One social worker interviewed for the Save the Children project found a Chinese girl who had been brought to Vancouver at age 11 and had worked for several years in prostitution while being addicted to cocaine, he said. Fadel said part of the problem with children who end up in the sex trade is that they're on the streets. And today's report finds that homelessness among children is rising in Canada. In fact, children and youth are the fastest growing segments of the homeless population in Canada, the report finds, calling that ``devastating'' for their development as adults. In Toronto alone, the number of families admitted to hostels increased 76 per cent between 1988 and 1996, and more than 5,000 children were homeless in 1996. More than 9,000 children and youth under 30 used Montreal's shelters, soup kitchens or drop-in centres in 1996, the latest year for which statistics are available. The report is compiled using a large database of information on children and youth, much of it compiled by Statistics Canada and Human Resources Development Canada. Some specific findings, such as the child sex trade, are based on independent research. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Number of children in the care of CAS groups up in six provinces, report shows ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Over-all, the report finds that child poverty in Canada fell 7 per cent from 1996 to 1997, to a total of 1.4 million children, but that was still 50 per cent more poor children in poverty than in 1989 when the Commons pledged to end the problem. Although there were slightly fewer poor children in 1997, the report finds those living poor were worse off than ever before. In 1996, an average family with children living in poverty needed $8,800 per year to climb above the poverty line, but a year later the average had climbed to more than $10,000. Due to the ongoing poverty statistics, the report finds there is still an enormous stress on child welfare programs in Canada. The Toronto Children's Aid Society told the report's authors that there are 10 cases of child abandonment in the city each week, 18 per cent of children are admitted to their care because they are homeless, and 31 per cent of children they see have witnessed violence at home. Six of seven provinces surveyed, including Ontario, showed increases in the number of children in the care of CAS groups from '95 to '98. The report also found that there was an 8 per cent increase in the number of children - more than 300,000 annually - under age 12 who had witnessed some violence in their own home. Commandos storm building, kill nine guerrillas in Thailand • COLUMNISTS • VISIONS OF TORONTO • WEIRD NEWS • WRITER'S CORNER Copyright* 1996-2000 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. The reproduction, modification, distribution, transmission or republication of any material from http://www.thestar.com is strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soap-boxing! 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