Thank you very much for the question.
You are completely right in saying that recruiting is very important. These groups thrive on the recruiting of young girls. In the 1980s and 1990s, street gangs were a lot less enterprising, but they have become expert recruiters and they now specialize in juvenile prostitution. It is their specialty.
Unfortunately they recruit vulnerable girls who end up in youth centres for example. I worked in these centres and I remember that we had to really keep an eye on our girls because sometimes the houses were connected. The recruiters go to places where the girls are the most vulnerable. This is well known. Sometimes girls recruit on their behalf. This does not happen often but we are seeing it more and more. These are girls who have been victims themselves and who live in constant fear. They say they have no other choice but to recruit other girls if they do not want to be the one that is beaten up or tortured.
Even if you are an MP, you cannot really renounce your past roles. These girls still come to see me, even though I am an MP. As long as I live, I will never forget this girl of about 19 whom I met not that long ago. She told me that her most painful experience occurred when she was 15 years old. She was in the back seat of a car that was taking her from Montreal to Quebec City, along with other girls, to be sexually exploited in a duplex. There was a 12-year-old girl there and she was crying.
This is a substantial problem. Street gangs are recruiting nonstop. The police officers I know tell me that as soon as these guys get out of jail, they grab their cell phones and start up again. I am talking about gang members, but let's not forget the Russian mafia, the Asian mafia or triads, in places like Vancouver, and criminal organizations. There is a lot of talk about street gangs, but transnational criminal organizations are very involved in human trafficking, whether it be international or national.
Our children are recruited at a very young age. Our young girls are exposed to certain images. They are constantly told that in order to be someone, they must walk around half naked and be beautiful. Messages like this are constantly circulating, whether it be in ads or at school, they contribute to making our girls more vulnerable. They are approached by guys who are very nice and handsome, who tell them they will give them all the love that they have been deprived of. That is how they get them mixed up in these kinds of systems. No one can even say how many young female minors are currently involved in these prostitution networks.
Mothers send me emails or call me to tell me that their daughters are in the Niagara region, for example, and they beg me to help them get them out of there. These young girls believe these guys are their boyfriends. I asked one woman how old her daughter was and she said 17. When I asked her how old her daughter was when all of this started, she said 14.
I can tell you one thing: we don't need to go all the way to Thailand to see situations like this involving children. We can continue to fight and fill the gaps in the Criminal Code as much as we can, but as long as there is no real legislation on prostitution, we will never be able to tighten up all the loopholes.