Montreal: Hotbed for Sex Trafficking, the Bankok of the West

The 8th round of the Deep Dives challenge brings more specificity for writers to narrow their focus around. Human trafficking is the topic, and it's a large one which affords us all the opportunity to shed some light on this dark aspect that humanity continues to struggle with. This is an important area of research that many don't realize is a reality of our current world. The more people that expose this underbelly of evil, the more awareness it can generate and potentially bring an end to this behavior, or at least further minimize it's occurrence.

Human trafficking is all over the world. I chose to look into human trafficking, including sex trafficking, in Canada (where I live). I live in Montreal, Quebec and found a WikiLeaks entitled "TRAFFICKING VIOLATIONS: SEX AND SMUGGLING IN QUEBEC". This is a telegram/cable that's "SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED, FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY". It dates back to 2003, and seems to be written by U.S. diplomats at the U.S. consulate in Montreal.

_{Source, CC BY-ND 2.0}

Montreal is often referenced in a positive way as the "Paris of the West". But I didn't know Montreal, of all places, was such a hotbed for sex trafficking. It's garnered a reputation as a hotbed for sex tourism, and is known through the negative reference of "Bankok of the West". Human smuggling, some of it trafficking, had increased from Costa Rica, Mexico, China and Russia according to Canadian and U.S. immigration officials in 2003.

Montreal police broke up a juvenile prostitution ring in 2003, where minor girls were forced to engage in nude dancing and prostitution. After the crack down in Montreal, the sex trafficking and prostitution rings moved to Quebec City and Niagara Falls, Ontario to keep their "business" alive.

Investigations followed to Quebec City though, where a gang called the "Wolf Pack" were stomped out and 33 men charged with pimping and sexual aggression. This gang operated throughout Quebec in many cities. Young girls weer recruited in Quebec City and placed in bars controlled by bikers across the province. Some clients that were arrested included "recognizable personalities in Quebec City". Prostitution rings were still in operation, but activities of the "Wold Pack" that led were stopped.

As is often the case with these crimes and abuses of young girls, politicians and other famous personalities are involved. At the time, many victims were calling into radio shows to expose how deep this went:

Anonymous prostitutes and even former juvenile prostitutes are calling open-line radio shows and say unnamed politicians and high-profile individuals were involved with the ring, leading citizens groups to conclude that the illicit sex trade is far more widespread than what the police probe has unveiled.

At the time, Quebec City alone had an estimated 500 to 600 juvenile prostitutes, which included both men and women. Protests of the trial in Quebec city turned into an angry mob, which forced the trial to be relocated to Montreal.

Sex trafficking is a fast growing lucrative "industry", with annual profits pegged at US$99 billion, according to the International Labour Organization. It's a low risk "enterprise" for criminals that brings in high profits, and is considered a form of slavery of the modern era. Victims are of any race or gender, including transgender. Those targeted have "histories of being marginalized, abused or isolated." This is often the case with children who are in the foster care system. Some of these children are there because their families were horrible, and some have been "legally" taken from their families by child protective services.

Young girls are seduced by pimps and subsequently conned into prostitution or forced to work in strip clubs. They are recruited in public places, such as shopping malls, metro stations and bus stops, and even on the street. Children running away from physical and/or sexual abuse at home or in foster care, in particular, are easily spotted by pimps at the bus and train stations of major Canadian cities. The pimps befriend them and provide them with food, accommodation and clothes before hooking them on drugs and alcohol and forcing them into sexual service. - Source

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Escort agencies are the widely used avenue to advertise for juvenile or child prostitution. One victim alone "can generate between $168,000 and $336,000 a year". In 1998 there were only 2 pages of ads for escort agencies in the Yellow Pages of Quebec. That rose to 17 pages by 2002, and 20 pages by 2003.

Strip clubs in Canada are also prime locations for exploitation, as clients can touch dancers. This stems from a 1999 Canadian Supreme Court decision that legalized "contact dancing", allowing customers to tough the breasts, buttocks and thighs of dancers. This has led to a blurry line and the growth of the sex industry. An article from 2002 said that lap dances brought in 50% more revenue for strip clubs than before the 1999 legislation.

Runaway girls are most vulnerable, being lured and coerced into "paying back" men who appeared nice and provided food and shelter to them. Girls are told they owe the men thousands of dollars for taking "care" of them. False identities are created by these "caretakers" who take most of the money from forcing them into the sex trade:

ONE GIRL REPORTED THAT SHE EARNED $300-$400 A DAY, BUT WAS ONLY GIVEN $25-$50 OF HER EARNINGS. THIS SCENARIO MATCHES THAT OF THE JUVENILE PROSTITUTION RING BROKEN UP BY MONTREAL POLICE IN FEBRUARY 2003. THE GAZETTE REPORTED THAT THE TWO RINGLEADERS WOULD BEGIN BY DATING THE GIRLS AND BECOMING THEIR LOVERS, AND THEN FORCE THEM TO STRIP IN BARS IN MONTREAL AND TORONTO. WHEN DANCING DID NOT GENERATE ENOUGH REVENUES, THE GIRLS WERE PUSHED INTO PROSTITUTION. - Source

The same applies to victims who have been lured into drugs and forced to pay off debt, or earn more drugs to sustain their drug addiction, making it even harder to leave the dark world they find themselves in. Some even fear leaving for the retribution these criminal enterprises will bring on them if they are caught, or against their families. Stockholm syndrome even plays a part for some girls who believe "believing they are in love and unaware of what's really happening." Pimps then become more cold as the girl will start to crave intimacy and be willing to get back into their good graces by selling themselves sexually.

The men often start by becoming "boyfriends," luring girls with promises of love and protection – a dream of a better life. Then come the gifts, such as clothes, an iPhone, even a pet.

"They make you feel special, they learn about you, listen to you … they gain information about you, to eventually use that against you," says Carly Kalish, a therapist at East Metro Youth Services in Toronto. She has worked with more than 50 trafficking survivors in the past year.

They manipulate the young and impressionable psychological structure of girls and young women in order to break them down and make them feel worthless:

"After you have broken her spirit, she has no sense of self-value. Now, pimp, put a price tag on the item you have manufactured."

Some girls get broken in other ways and are physically confined to a life of sex slavery, as Detective-Sergeant Nunzio Tramontozzi of the Toronto police force's human-trafficking enforcement team described one girl who was only 13 years old: "She'd been locked in a basement apartment and forced to service men there and at hotels and in cars."

The most vulnerable may be runaway and homeless girls, and the younger the better, with new targets being an average age of 13-14 years old. Key factors "include kids who are in foster care and who are LGBTQ – in other words, who may be isolated". They can be contacted anywhere:

... at a mall, a party, an amusement park, the bus depot, through friends or at school. Some stalkers even set up bogus job interviews.

Increasingly, it is online – through social-media sites such as Facebook and Instagram, or dating sites, like Plenty of Fish and Tinder.

It used to be mostly Canadian women that were exploited, but also includes Native American women, as well as foreign women who get trafficked into Quebec. Many come from Russia and "Eastern European source countries" where criminal networks "facilitate the recruitment and transport of illegal sex workers into Canada", as another WikiLeaks document says. And it's not just men who lure women, but women are selling out their own gender:

Although usually men, recruiters can also be women, or even girls who have been pimped out themselves. By helping in procurement, they may not have to meet the same daily quotas, or be subjected to as much violence.

As the WikiLeaks document corroborates with another example:

IN ANOTHER CASE, AN INDIAN WOMAN TRAFFICKED TWO MINORS INTO CANADA FOR PROSTITUTION. ACCORDING TO A CANADIAN IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL, THE WOMAN WAS APPREHENDED AND SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS IN PRISON BEFORE BEING DEPORTED TO INDIA.

Coercion, intimidation and threats of violence work well to get compliance from girls and prevent them from leaving the :

introducing victims to hard drugs, threatening to send compromising photos to their parents, violence, confiscating their identification, hijacking their social-media accounts, literally branding them with tattoos.

Biker gangs have been the main controllers and kingpins behind prostitution, strip clubs and escort agencies in Quebec. Other criminal gangs like the Haitian, Asian or Russian gangs, use motorcycle gangs as middlemen to place girls into clubs and agencies.

Despite previous efforts to stomp out the plague of sex slavery, in 2017 commercial sexual exploitation was still a problem in Quebec. When the Grand Prix race came to Montreal in 2017, the mayor called for an advisory board "to come up with recommendations on how to fight human trafficking during the busy F1 weekend." Earlier that year, a 25-member squad was to be created from police all over Quebec "in an effort to 'neutralize' pimping and sex trafficking networks around the province". A similar squad operating in Ontario has 50 officers.

_{Lembagai KITA/wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0}

The battle to fight against human trafficking, sex trafficking and sex slavery is an ongoing one. Humans have been trying to dominate others that they could take advantage of for millennia. Women and children are the most vulnerable, but men can still fall victim to this dark pit of human behavior by those that prey on any they can. It happens in Montreal, in the rest of Quebec, in all of Canada and the world.

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References:

• WikiLeaks - TRAFFICKING VIOLATIONS: SEX AND SMUGGLING IN QUEBEC
• WikiLeaks - CANADA 2010 TIP REPORT
• More arrests in juvenile prostitution ring
• Festival workers linked to teen prostitution ring
• Juvenile prostitution case attracts big name
• Child Prostitution
• The Trafficked: How sex trafficking works in Canada
• Focus Montreal: Fighting sex trafficking during the Grand Prix

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Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.

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