Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak today. We are honoured to be here.
I'm going to take just a few minutes to tell you our story, and then Ed will speak more directly to Bill C-36.
In 1990 our daughter Cheri Lynn Smith died. She was murdered. She was 18 years old and six months pregnant. We loved her very much and miss her every day. Our home was a happy one. As a child growing up, she did well in school, played organized sports, played the flute and the piano, and was in the school band and the city youth choir. Her natural leadership abilities were noticed and encouraged in the various groups she was involved with.
After grade 11, during the summer, Cheri attended the Regina exhibition with her brother and some friends. There she met a young man. He was 18 and she was 17. A few days later she told us she was in love with him and was leaving home to be with him. She said she would be back home for the start of school, her grade 12 year. We tried everything we knew to convince her not to leave, but she went with him anyway. She had no idea what he had planned for her.
Just a couple of days later she found herself in downtown Edmonton selling her body to men who used and abused her. In fact, her very first trick gave her a beating and stole her money. This was cause for the first of many beatings she took from her pimp. This is how he controlled her. He would romance her with sweet words, gifts, and sex, and then give her a beating and tell her it was her fault. Then she would do anything she could to gain back his favour. Many times she told us, “I love him. He needs me. I'll do whatever it takes to keep this relationship going.” He decided where and when she worked, how much money she had to make, even who she could talk to.
At the beginning, to be sure that Cheri would be dependent on him, he took her from her home town, Regina, and put her out on the unfamiliar streets of Edmonton, where she knew no one to call for help. He moved her to Calgary, Winnipeg, back home to Regina, and finally to Victoria, B.C., each time to isolate her from us, her family.
Cheri became pregnant while prostituting. She had no idea who the father was or even when she had become pregnant. By this time she had chlamydia, a sexually transmitted infection. She was malnourished and worn out. She believed, naively, that once the baby came she wouldn't have to work anymore, that her pimp would get a job and she would have the happy home she desperately wanted. So she still wouldn't leave him and come home.
The police apprehended Cheri in Calgary and Winnipeg. Because she was under age, they just sent her home. Then her pimp came and got her. We received no help, no advice or direction from the police to help her.
Finally, when she was working in Regina, she was caught in a sting operation. She was arrested and charged with solicitation. We were so hopeful that on her court date the judge would put her in our custody, but Cheri didn't appear at court. Her pimp had moved her to Victoria, where again she knew no one who could help her and was cut off from us. In her phone calls home she was sounding more and more unhappy and talked about coming home, but then she disappeared.
On June 4 one of the young prostitutes who knew Cheri reported to the police in Victoria that she was missing. The police didn't believe her. Later the girl brought in Cheri's wallet and some personal correspondence. Then they drew up a missing person file on her. That's all they did. They didn't contact us. But the young prostitute did phone us to tell us that she didn't know where Cheri was and that she was very worried.
I went out to Victoria, looking for Cheri. I met the young girl who had called us, her pimp, and some other very young girls and their pimps. No one knew where Cheri was. I met with the police. My appearance seemed to stir them into action.
About four weeks later, on September 9, Cheri's body was found. The autopsy showed that she died on June 4. She had been beaten to death. Of course, her unborn child died with her.
No one has ever been charged with her murder, but it's still being investigated.
My hope is, as you have listened to our story, that you heard two things: firstly, we could do nothing to help our daughter get out of prostitution; and secondly, that she was psychologically controlled by her pimp, that she was not able to make the decisions needed to free herself.
Our tragic experience is not an anomaly. There are many parents like us, trying to help their daughters. There are many Cheris out there, controlled, abused, disposable.
Please do all you can to help them.
Thank you.