Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue 15 - Evidence - November 30, 2009 - afternoon meeting
OTTAWA, Monday, November 30, 2009
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 2 p.m. to examine the issue of sexual exploitation of children in Canada, with a particular emphasis on understanding the scope and prevalence of the problem of the sexual exploitation of children across the country and in particularly affected communities.
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights is examining the issue of the sexual exploitation of children in Canada, with particular emphasis on understanding the scope and prevalence of the problem of the sexual exploitation of children across the country and in particularly affected communities.
Before we continue any further, I do apologize for my voice; I have laryngitis. I hope I can be understood because it is a bit difficult for me to speak.
We have three excellent organizations and speakers for this afternoon, one by video conference. Here with us in the Senate is Mark Erik Hecht, Co-founder of Beyond Borders, and Jacques Moïse, Coordinator of the Projet d'Intervention auprès des mineurs-res prostitués-ées. By video conference, we have with us Glori Meldrum, Founder and Chair of the Board of Directors of Little Warriors. Welcome to you all.
Unless otherwise indicated, I will be asking Mr. Hecht to speak first and we will then follow the order of the agenda. I would appreciate short introductory statements. We have three groups before us, and we want to leave time for questions from senators, who generally have too many questions for the time allotted.
With that introduction, please proceed, Mr. Hecht.
Mark Erik Hecht, Co-founder, Beyond Borders: Thank you very much for the invitation to speak with you today. I will keep my submission short. I will let you know a bit about the organization in the event that you are not familiar with us, and then I will talk briefly about a research study we conducted which, I think, will be of interest in light of the work and the investigation you are undertaking on the sexual exploitation of children.
Our full name is Beyond Borders: Ensuring Global Justice for Children. The organization was founded in 1996. Currently, it is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Although it is a Canadian organization, it is affiliated with ECPAT International, the campaign to End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes based in Bangkok, Thailand. The other founder of Beyond Borders, Ms. Rosalind Prober, currently holds the North American seat on ECPAT International's Board of Directors.
Beyond Borders is non-governmental, non-profit and non-political. We are purely volunteer-driven. We have no paid staff, which is intentional. We take funding neither from governments nor from corporations. All of the funding that supports our work comes from individual donors.
We have several programs that are relevant to the study you are undertaking. I will mention four of them briefly.
The first is our advocacy work. We advocate with civil society, for example, by sparking letter-writing campaigns. Most recently, we completed one encouraging the Canadian government to raise the age of consent, which was successful. We also do advocacy work with the government. For example, we are often called to speak before the Justice Committee on various bills that pertain to protecting children from sexual exploitation.
Second, we do monitoring and intervention. We monitor the media for stories that are sensationalistic when it comes to child exploitation, and we monitor the media to reward positive journalism. Every year, we announce annual media awards for journalists, print media, radio and television that provide good journalism supporting the rights of children, more specifically to protect them from sexual exploitation.
We also monitor the courts and sometimes intervene to find out what is happening with a case involving children who are sexually exploited, or we may monitor the testing of a new law. For example, on two occasions, Beyond Borders intervened in cases before the Supreme Court relevant to this topic, one being R v. Sharpe, a case regarding the possession of child pornography in Canada. A few weeks ago, I appeared before the Supreme Court in the issue of R v. Legare, Canada's first case of Internet child luring.
Third, we provide networking services by bringing groups together from around Canada that work to protect children from sexual exploitation, and we also provide networking to link victims of sexual exploitation with appropriate support services.
Fourth, we conduct research. That is what I wish to talk to you about in the remaining few minutes.
For the past seven years, Beyond Borders has been conducting research on the issue of the role and involvement of the private sector in the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Beyond Borders was launched at the first World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Stockholm, in 1996. Five years later, at the second world congress, which was in Yokohama, Japan, UNICEF approached us to undertake a research study to look at the role and the involvement of private sector in the sexual exploitation of children.
At the third world congress, which was in Brazil last year in November — I met Senator Andreychuk there — Beyond Borders again was approached by UNICEF to do a more comprehensive and thorough investigation about how the private sector is involved in the sexual exploitation of children. More specifically, we were approached to investigate how the private sector is profiting from the sexual exploitation of children.
This is the report, which I believe was sent to you by link. It is available in English, French and a host of other languages because it was published by UNICEF. It is called Private Sector Accountability in Combating the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children. It is 100-plus pages in length. Essentially, it is an overview of how the private sector has been implicated in the sexual exploitation of children.
I will not go through the report because that would take too long. The report looks at four sub-sectors of the private sector: travel and tourism, the media, new technologies and the financial sector. The report examines each of these sub- sectors and looks at the allegations that have been made as to how they are involved with the sexual exploitation of children, specifically commercial sexual exploitation. The report examines programs or projects undertaken that, arguably, have been put into place to mitigate any damage being done or any violations of children's rights being conducted by the private sector, and the best practices that are in place and that should be encouraged by the private sector to ensure that their behaviour and conduct do not sexually exploit children.
The bottom line is that the private sector suggests, and has been encouraging for many years, self-regulation, specifically the topic of corporate social responsibility. The report indicates that this does not work and that what should be done is more regulation, starting from the international human rights community, including the UN — and I can talk more about that if senators have questions about what the UN is doing in this area — trickling all the way down to what national governments should be doing to ensure regulation of the private sector to avoid these kinds of incidents.
That is where the relevance is to this committee. As a Senate committee, you are mandated to provide such recommendations that the government would then investigate, consider and, hopefully, where appropriate, put into action. I would suggest that this is one area where there needs to be more action.
Some good examples have come to light in the media. Just last week, I attended a press conference where the current government in power launched an initiative to mandate that Internet service providers report child pornography, which is great. That is supported by the study. I could give you many more examples. Further, if there are questions as to why corporate social responsibility is not the answer, I could provide some indication of that based on my research.
[Translation]
Jacques Moïse, Coordinator, Projet d'intervention auprès des mineurs-res prostitués-ées: Madam Chair, my name is Jacques Moïse and I have been working with the Projet d'intervention auprès des mineurs prostitués for 18 years. I started working with young people in the street, and I am now the director of that organization. I wrote a book on juvenile prostitution among young boys that is entitled Adolescence, initiation et prostitution.
In order to grasp the true scope of the situation, you have to be able to see both sides of the coin. First and foremost, it is important to be aware that the clientele evolves and changes. There was a time when the client group was made up of a stereotypical type of elderly men. Now, the clientele is getting younger and younger. There are more and more young people of 18 or 19 in erotic dance bars. It is even more important to ask ourselves how many young people are involved, and also how the clientele has changed over the years and why.
We cannot dissociate the scope and prevalence of the phenomenon of young people involved in juvenile prostitution without evaluating the scope and prevalence of the emergent factors behind the exploding figures.
The Gazette had in the past published a headline stating that 5,000 minors were involved in juvenile prostitution in urban areas, in particular in the Montreal region, which led to the creation of a social construct. This figure put forward by the newspapers at the time, around 1979, is behind the fact that various social stakeholders stepped up to take this problem in hand. Note that the young people involved were mostly boys. People began to talk about juvenile prostitution because they had discovered a lot of networks involving young boys. At that time, there was a certain shyness around talking about minor girls who were engaging in prostitution.
Starting in the 1980s, several phenomena started to emerge, including street gangs, the hypersexualization of adolescents, certain styles, raves where one could find young people of 12, 13, 14 and 15, because there was no alcohol being served, and the abuse of GHB and ecstasy. This may seem off-topic, but when you frequent this environment, you see that these drugs have a direct impact on juvenile prostitution.
The commoditization of sexuality and sexual exchanges for money or other material goods such as clothing are also very important factors. I will give you an example of the commoditization of sexual relations, without going into details. At a teenagers' party, everyone brings a case of beer. At three o'clock in the morning, there is no more beer and a young girl asks a young boy for one. The boy asks her what she is ready to do in exchange for that beer. I will spare you the rest. We tend to go further afield to try and find out about the clientele, whereas close by, among adolescents, these things are going on under the radar.
When I talk about trends that led to an explosion in the participation of young girls in juvenile prostitution, the current element that is the most important is the use of the Internet in prostitution. I have been on several sites to try and find out how this works. There are five, six or seven people or more who chat online with a young person. At a certain point, one adult asks to go into a private chat room with that young person and that means that there will be contact between the two. In order to go into a private area, you have to pay with a credit card, and with a web camera, you can stay on that site 24 hours a day. The money will go to the owner of the site but the young boy or young girl who participates, how do they get their money? I simply want to demonstrate the scope of the situation in a practical way.
You must also be aware that there is no geographical limit with the Internet, young people can talk with people who are in Germany or in Japan, 24 hours a day.
There are specialized magazines — I will not give you their names, you can easily find them — that advertise nude dancers and escorts. You will see that there is an explosion of 18-year-olds. They are all 18 years old. It is as though they had begun to do dance or escort work on the day of their 18th birthday.
It is a powerful number. There are between 2,000 or 3,000 young people who are involved in dance and escort networks who are 18 or over. When you dig into this a bit, you see that these are young people you may have known since they were 14, 15 or 16. So they did not begin these activities on the day of their 18th birthday. That gives you some idea of the scope of the situation.
There is something that has to be taken into account: in Montreal, last summer, there was an explosion of young minors who came from elsewhere, especially Mexico. These were boys of 14, 15 and 16, because it is easier to move boys. The clients no longer need to go on erotic or exotic sex tours, because now there is a whole pool of young Vietnamese, Chinese, and others, in Montreal. That explosion put people face to face with a very difficult situation. First there is the language problem of course, and then also, how do you intervene with young people who do not have parents around?
You must also take into account the variety of services that are offered, because on the topic of juvenile prostitution, people will refer mostly to street prostitution. However, juvenile street prostitution has almost disappeared. You see young people of 18, 19 and 20 on street corners. I used to say to them: "If you find four or five youngsters of 14 on a Saturday night on St. Catherine Street in Montreal, bring them to me and I will pay you.'' But now things are happening more and more through networks. The kids no longer have to go and freeze on a street corner when they have a cellular phone. The technology is so advanced that teenagers no longer need to go and find clients on the street.
I will conclude with the statistics. It is always difficult to pin down statistics on such an environment. However, if I look at the annual report of our organization last year, we met with 202 young people from 12 to 20 years of age, 41 of whom were from 12 to 16 years of age, and several were 17. It is sometimes difficult to find out the real age of the young people you work with because this is the kingdom of false identities; everyone has two ID cards.
I simply wanted to emphasize the fact that the situation is exploding, and what is becoming difficult is that there are more and more of these young people, but they are less and less visible. That is the problem we are facing.
I would now be pleased to answer your questions.
[English]
The Chair: Now I will turn to Glori Meldrum, who is appearing by video conference.
Glori Meldrum, Founder and Chair of the Board of Directors, Little Warriors: Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today. I am an entrepreneur, a mother of three and a survivor of child sexual abuse.
From the ages of 8 to 10 years old, I was sexually abused by a family member. I lived with my family member for two years. When I moved out of my family member's house, my mother took me to the authorities and we reported the abuse to the police and to social services. No one believed me. They thought that my offender was a very nice man, as he was a crosswalk guard at my elementary school. Nothing was ever done and my offender at that time was never ever investigated.
By the time I was 12 years old, I was suicidal. I sat on my father's bathroom floor with a razor in my hand and contemplated my young life. I had two choices: I could end the pain or I could fight — and that was the day that I became a little warrior.
In March 2008, we launched Little Warriors, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the prevention of child sexual abuse. We focus on three key areas.
The first is prevention. Little Warriors delivers an adult prevention program called the Stewards of Children. We teach adults how to help prevent, recognize and react to child sexual abuse. Our program is research-based and third- party evaluated. Every adult we train has a positive impact on 10 children. Currently, we have 100 volunteers who teach our program coast to coast.
The second area of focus is education. In order to solve a problem like child sexual abuse, we need to first educate people that there is one. Currently, on an annual basis, Little Warriors receives at no cost over $8 million in donated media through media partners. Through the media, we educate Canadians on the prevalence and frequency of child sexual abuse. We direct Canadians to our national resource directory so they can look up and see what resources are available in their rural area or in their town. We also educate Canadians to take our prevention program so that they can learn how to help protect children from being sexually abused and how to recognize the signs and symptoms. We teach them what to do if a child discloses.
To date, in the last 20 months, Little Warriors has received over 5 million hits on our website. On average, we receive 100 to 150 calls and emails per day.
Our third area of focus is resources. As I mentioned, we have created a national resource directory that provides Canadians with national and local sexual abuse resources. The directory is available at littlewarriors.ca.
I want to share a few statistics with you. One in three girls will be sexually abused. The average age for a girl to be sexually abused is 12. The average age for a boy to be sexually abused is 4, and one in six boys will be sexually abused. Ninety-five per cent of child sexual abuse victims know their perpetrator, just like I did. Sixty per cent of all reported sexual assaults are against our children. Thirty to forty per cent of the time, the victims are abused by a family member. It is also important to know that very few cases — 2 per cent of substantiated sexual abuse — involve a stranger. Our children are being sexually abused by people that they know and trust.
As for the consequences of child sexual abuse, we hear them every day: suicide, prostitution, depression, eating disorders and drug addictions, to name a few.
Child sexual abuse in our country is an epidemic. It is time to stand up for our kids. Every day I ask people: What do you want as Canadians when it comes to child sexual abuse? I ask them on facebook. I ask them when I speak. They email us; they write to us. I want to share a few things that they have shared with us.
Canadians want a national prevention strategy. We need to offer both child and adult child sexual abuse prevention programs. They need to be mandatory in every school for every child.
The adult prevention programs need to be in sporting associations and organizations that serve youth. Most important, adult prevention programs need to be offered to teachers in every school across this country.
Canadians want to be educated. We hear from them that they want to know if there is a sex offender in their area. They want the sex offender registry to be public just like it is in the U.S. Canadians want a national research study. We need to know what we are dealing with now with regard to child sexual abuse.
The last federal research was done in 1983, which was the Badgley study, and it did not include Internet, child pornography or human trafficking. It is time for a new study. The biggest thing I hear that Canadians ask for is that there needs to be available resources for kids who have been sexually abused and their families.
Why are there places in every major city across the country for offenders to go get treatment and there is little to none for the children and their families that are being sexually abused? Children need to come first and they need help to heal.
I also wanted to share that Canadians often talk about justice. One story that will always be with me was of a little girl who was raped by her father. He was convicted and served six months in jail. The first place he went when he was released was home, to rape his daughter again. Do you think she ever pressed charges? She did not.
The average sentence for sexually abusing a child is only a few years, with six months being the average time served. Survivors say to me, "Glori, why would I go through the system and be re-victimized, when I know that a conviction is slim to none and that if they are convicted, odds are that they will be out in six months?''
Canadians want the government to get tough on crime. They want dangerous offender status on the first offence when people sexually abuse our kids. They want mandatory minimums that fit the crime. They want offenders to actually serve the time and not be let out by the parole board. They want people who sexually abuse our children to be in jail.
Finally, Canadians want a system that works, one that does not re-victimize the child. There is a reason that most children statistically do not come forward to press charges and go through our system: It is because the system is a nightmare. I have been through it twice, once as a 10-year-old little girl and once as a 35-year-old woman. I went back, after 20 some years, and had my offender charged.
The system has not gotten any better. Sometimes kids must visit 10 different people and agencies in order to tell their story and to get the services they deserve. We need more child advocacy centres like the Zebra Centre in Edmonton, which brings together in one location a variety of professionals such as police officers, psychologists and resources. Only a handful of these centres exist in Canada, and in the U.S. there are 900.
In closing, I applaud you for your efforts in looking into the issue of child sexual abuse because it is very important to stand up for our kids. We hear from these children and their families every day. They need something to be done. I urge each of you to stand up for our children, be their voice, be leaders and make the changes that need to be made to protect our children and to provide resources to those who need them most.
Senator Jaffer: I would like to ask questions of you, Mr. Hecht. As with all three presentations, so many questions have been raised, but I will start with you.
Are you working with our government, with DFAIT, regarding corporate social responsibility? Are you working with any specific department on the issues you have raised?
Mr. Hecht: No. We have been approached by various government agencies to provide some insight into our experiences. DFAIT comes to mind and the Department of Justice, of course. If new legislation is being contemplated, we are often called upon to provide an opinion on it, but we are not currently working in partnership with any government agency on this.
Senator Jaffer: You mentioned R. v. Sharpe. I believe that sex tourism also goes with what you were saying. Have you covered it? My angst in that regard is that we have legislation, but we have not provided the resources to prosecute those cases. The two cases that have been prosecuted, and both were by chance. I would not say it was careful police work to get them prosecuted.
Mr. Hecht: This is something I know quite a bit about. The first time Beyond Borders came to the House of Commons Justice Committee was on Bill C-27 in 1996. That was the first time Canada looked at including extra- territorial legislation in the Criminal Code to prosecute Canadians committing sexual offences against our children outside of Canada and foreign children as well. We have not had much success. As mentioned, there have been only two cases, and we found out about both really by chance.
With the issue of sex tourism, there is still a constitutional question as to validity, which has also been an impediment to prosecution. In at least one of the cases, the offender said that should his case come to court, his lawyer would argue that there is a constitutional issue with respect to extra-territorial legislation. He ended up pleading, so that never actually came to fruition.
With respect to the research we did, it was suggested that there must be a multi-faceted approach when looking at sex tourism. One definitely is legislation and the assurance that there are adequate resources to investigate and prosecute sex tourists. However, coupled with that, we need more work around the corporate social responsibility angle.
Of all the industries I mentioned — the new technologies, the media and the financial sector — the one sector that has done the most is the travel and tourism sector, by far. However, it is interesting that when compared to other countries, Canadian corporations have done little.
In my report I talk about an international code of conduct. It was discussed at length at the Third World Congress. The code has more to it than cursory interest, which some corporations support. It is an in-depth code with strong indicators as to compliance, including the possibility of having it monitored by outside resources, which is very important.
Internationally, well over 100 corporations have signed on to this code, which is specifically intended for the travel and tourism sector. In Canada there are two. More work needs to be done on the law and order issue, as well as on corporate social responsibility.
Senator Jaffer: I do not have time today to ask you in-depth questions on that issue. If you have anything further to add, perhaps you can present it to us in writing, especially if it has to do with recommendations.
Mr. Hecht: Yes, absolutely.
Senator Jaffer: The big issue, of course, is getting witnesses to come to our country. I am interested in what you are doing because of your partnership with Bangkok. We know that much of our sex tourism is in that area, and so I would be very interested to hear from you. I would appreciate it if you could communicate your recommendations to the chair.
Mr. Hecht: It would be my pleasure.
Senator Dallaire: Mr. Hecht, regarding corporate social responsibility, one of your solutions was more regulation of the private sector.
The NGO community has not broken the code yet in respect of moving public opinion and legislators to a sense of urgency given the scale of the problem you have described. In this era of global communications and various means of communications, why is our NGO community not more activist?
On the screen, we have a fine example of solid activism, and also in the streets of Montreal. Why is there not a more strategic entity that is activist, versus influential, to break the code and bring this issue to the fore?
Mr. Hecht: That is an excellent question. Two things immediately come to mind. One is this idea of corporate social responsibility. As suggested, the urgency to move beyond corporate social responsibility is a relatively new phenomenon. At the First World Congress in 1996 and the Second World Congress, the private sector was not even invited.
The idea of acknowledging that they have a positive or negative role to play is fairly new. That information is not widely understood within governments and civil society.
The other challenge is the fact that the multinationals have way more money than the NGOs. Whenever we try to push this agenda forward, a multinational corporation launches a campaign on how they are good corporate citizens, which puts people's minds at ease that things may not be as bad as reported in the media or as a study produced by an NGO might suggest. It is very challenging in that respect.
One of the more pervasive challenges with respect to the organizations in Canada working on the sexual exploitation of children is that we are not unified at all. That is something for which NGOs must take responsibility.
For example, I have been working in this field for over 10 years, and I know many organizations that do front-line work. This is the first time I have ever heard of this gentleman's organization or this lady's organization out West. Obviously, we have to take quite a bit of responsibility in order to bridge some of the gaps. However, corporate social responsibility is fairly new, which is why more information is not available.
The Chair: You used the term "multinational corporations.'' Which multinational corporations are you addressing generically here? That goes from a mining corporation to tourism to the owner of a yacht. It would be helpful to both the audience and senators if you could clarify what you mean.
Mr. Hecht: Absolutely.
It is difficult to define "multinational.'' There are too many definitions within intergovernmental organizations and within academia. There also seems to be a distinction between a multinational and transnational corporation as well. Generally speaking, these are profit-making companies that have a global reach.
The ones we target in our study are specifically those around travel and tourism; that would be tour operators, hotel chains, airlines, et cetera. The media includes newspapers, advertising agencies, marketing agencies and film. The new technologies would be Internet service providers, mobile communication corporations and software producers, to name a few. The financial ones would be banks, credit card companies and new forms of payment such as e-gold and PayPal.
A host of others could have a role to play and are not directly implicated. For example, other corporations that have nothing to do with those four sectors and are able to create programs for children at high risk have a role to play. By bringing in positive programs, they could be reducing the chances of these children being exploited in these four sub- sectors of the private sector.
What is interesting, though, is that no one talks about two subsectors that are implicated in the sexual exploitation of children because they seem to be beyond the reach of corporate social responsibility. One is organized crime. Organized crime involves people who are making the most money on this, but they are never discussed because the idea of having them engaged in corporate social responsibility seems impossible.
The other one is quite interesting because it has the possibility of being engaged this discussion, yet we have not reached out to it. I am referring to the adult entertainment industry; the adult sex industry. My friend here mentioned that on the Web there are tonnes of pictures of kids who are barely 18. These children — young adults — do not get involved in pornography on their eighteenth birthday; they have been involved before. The adult industry, which promotes legal sexual activity or legal pornography, has a role to play in minimizing child pornography, but they have not done so. They have not played a role. They are not engaged in the discussion at all. I think it is an interesting question as to why.
The Chair: I am sorry, Senator Dallaire; I thought it would be helpful to get the definition for the record.
Senator Dallaire: Excellent.
I agree entirely with your comment that the NGOs are all over the map. However, with regard to the funding exercise, one could debate whether the sales pitch from the corporate side is stronger than that of the NGO community.
I want to go from that comment to Mr. Moïse.
[Translation]
Why do we not see more students at the college level, for instance, rallying against this abuse of young people, especially since a number of them are among these victims?
Mr. Moïse: A lot of young people at the high school, college and university levels are involved in prostitution as escorts or in other ways to pay for their studies. The fundamental question to be asked is this: do I have the right to sell my body? In Europe, they make television advertisements for briefs and they recruit young men of 18 or 19 for them, but they are made up in such a way that they look like they are 14. These advertisements are filmed in such a way that there is a subliminal come-hither message that seems to say, "Come, come and join me.''
The problem is that we are living in a society that is putting out a double message. A television clip is not a success if there is no nudity — in my time, these were considered real porn films. When there is no nudity, or marked eroticism, what we call pornography, in the publicity for a given singer, people think that it will not sell. Looking like a pimp has become a style, a trend, and our society accepts that young people present their bodies in this way for some companies, whose names I am not going to mention.
The young person tells himself that if multinationals can sell product in this way and make profits, why can't he? There is a dual message and it is legal. Sexuality is being commoditized. Prostitution seems completely legal. No one gets up in arms anymore because there is a commoditization of sexuality period, which we call hyper-sexualization. This is a means of communication that has become sexualized. I am constantly around young people, minors. It has become commonplace to take money in exchange for sexual favors. People feel that there is no need to mobilize because our society accepts the commoditization of sexuality and of sexual exploitation.
[English]
Senator Brazeau: Thank you all for being here. You should be commended for the work you do.
My question is specifically for Ms. Meldrum.
Before I continue, on behalf of all of us, you should all be commended for making the decision to fight this as opposed to the alternative you spoke about earlier. Your clientele and constituency are benefiting from the hard and important work that you do.
You mentioned earlier that, as in your own personal situation and as we hear from many victims across the country, when a victim goes to law enforcement authorities, oftentimes the law enforcement authorities either do not believe them or, after the allegation is made, do not act. You also mentioned the lax laws in this country. If we do not get tougher on crime, victims may not feel as if going to law enforcement authorities will benefit them or will get them anywhere. What do you suggest that we as parliamentarians can do to shed some light with regard to police authorities across the country so that they take allegations seriously and act upon them?
Ms. Meldrum: The Internet Child Exploitation Unit in Edmonton has a staff of six or seven police. Part of the issue is the resource side. Let us face it: When I was a little girl, I did not have the confidence that I do as an adult. In most cases, offenders are much more sophisticated. They know how to manipulate. The child just tells what happened. The resource side is definitely an issue.
I mentioned the child advocacy centres. Kids should only have to go to one place to disclose and the resources should be there. They should not have to go to 10 different places. It is really hard to tell your story over and over again. I am 36 years old now, and it is still tough for me to do it. You can imagine what it was like as a child.
It comes down to resources with the authorities. It comes down to the child advocacy centres, and also resources for those who have been abused. The number one question we get is, "Where do I go to get help?''
Senator Brazeau: Thank you for that.
We often hear parliamentarians say that getting tough crime is just a smokescreen and does not really do anything for victims. The first thing I have learned in my short time here in the Senate is that perhaps it is not parliamentarians we should listen to; perhaps it is victims and their families. If we get tougher on crime, and I believe the current government has made incremental steps in that direction, will we make headway in this country with respect to tackling those who are charged and convicted of sexual exploitation? Do you think that will offer the conditions for victims to go ahead and raise this with police authorities?
Ms. Meldrum: It is one of the steps. People want to know that that something will happen if they come forward and go through the process. It is one step, but prevention is also a key.
If you get the laws under control and are tougher on crime, more people will come forward, but it is the chicken and the egg scenario. You need the resources. Those people who are stepping forward to go through the courts and the system need support. It is a very difficult thing to do. As I mentioned, being 36, I went back through the system a couple years ago, and it brought me to my knees. It was very difficult. We need the resources, and we need changes to the system and the law.
Senator Brazeau: We also need people like you and others across the country to allow us to make that happen.
Senator Demers: I congratulate you, Ms. Meldrum, for your tremendous courage. You have three children. They will benefit from your very sad experience. I believe everyone else here is also thinking of your tremendous courage.
[Translation]
Mr. Moïse, you have provided an exceptional explanation. I do have some concerns. You know a great deal about this matter. You talked about the Internet and about young Mexicans who arrive in Canada. Are the authorities involved sufficient? You who know so much about this and do not represent law enforcement, can you tell us how it is that people are continuing to exploit these young boys and girls of 12, 13 or 14? Do you feel frustrated that you do not have more help? I am not accusing policemen, on the contrary, but are their numbers sufficient to the task at hand? You have a good idea of the situation involving today's young people.
Mr. Moïse: Yes we are frustrated, of course. But it is not just a matter of laws and policemen; it is also a societal issue. It is important that we understand that aspect.
I am often invited to several other countries to come and talk about juvenile prostitution. Earlier, while listening to the lady who spoke, I realized that when we talk about children, we are referring to a broad concept. A child of 8 is not the same as a youth of 16 or 17. It is interesting to talk about victimization or repression, but we have to talk more about responsibility. We can give a boy of 14 or 15 tools to face certain situations, but we cannot do that with a child of 8 years of age.
In considering youth- related problems, we often wonder what we can do to help them. However, we have to look at the family and the societal context. The fathers of families have trouble telling their girls of 12, 13 or 14 that they have become women. All of a sudden, they are scared. They are even scared to say to a young girl that she has become a beautiful woman. The person who will tell her, however, will occupy a huge place in the life of that young girl.
People's feelings and perspective on things is increasingly mixed. Society is evolving and going backwards at one and the same time. At a certain time, a certain openness toward sexual matters was emerging. Today, people are afraid to talk about it. They are afraid to bathe a young child and be accused of abuse. It is a societal problem.
Everyone sees the problem with prostitution and other such activities, but we are missing the solution. We will say that solicitation is illegal, but that prostitution is not really a problem. How then can you have prostitution without solicitation? We are putting out a double message and that is the real problem.
Of course I am frustrated with the situation. That said, a million police officers will not solve the problem. Bringing down all kinds of strict legislation will not solve this problem. Society has to look at the whole concept of young people and sexuality. Laws will change nothing if society and attitudes do not change.
[English]
Senator Mitchell: I will direct my questions in particular to Ms. Meldrum, who comes from Alberta. Thank you for being with us today, Ms. Meldrum.
I was struck by a particular point you made that offenders often receive help. Treatment programs are available for them, but there are not many programs for children. I would like to pursue the one example you used of the Zebra Centre in Edmonton. Could you describe that for us? Who runs it? How is it funded? Do you have any idea of how many people it would treat in a given year? How would you rate its success?
Ms. Meldrum: I will share what I know about the Zebra Centre in Edmonton. It is my understanding that some funding comes from the Edmonton Police Service, and I know that they raise money to operate. I hear many positive comments and people sharing their stories and experiences at the Zebra Centre, which is set up to put children first. I have been there. It is a beautiful facility. There are toys for the kids to play with. The whole investigative piece that Zebra does is built around the child. Children are not going to an RCMP station or being put in a little white room, like I was as a child, to give my testimony. It is very friendly.
My understanding as well is that the Zebra Centre is the first centre of its kind in Canada and has shown an increase in charges laid. Judges feel that with this model there is a better quality of evidence, resulting in more guilty pleas, higher conviction rates and more appropriate sentences. However, there are less than a handful of them across the country, compared to the U.S., where there are about 900 of them. We have seen great success with the Zebra model.
Senator Mitchell: I got it wrong in the first place. It is not actually a treatment centre but a support centre. You clearly outlined in your testimony that there are two streams: One is the problem of supporting children as they go through the process of presenting their case, getting charges, testifying, and so on; the other would be the treatment process. This is a group that supports children in the court process, as it were?
Ms. Meldrum: Yes, it is the investigative piece.
Senator Mitchell: We will pursue this further because I think we would all be interested in that. It is something concrete that, as you say, seems to be working.
When it comes to actual treatment, are there standard therapies — that is, theories and practices of therapy — that are used specifically to deal with this issue? Second, if you are a family with a child in this horrible, tragic predicament, where would you take them in a city like Edmonton?
Ms. Meldrum: That is an interesting question. In the 20-some years since I was abused, I have been to more psychologists than I can even keep track of.
You would probably bring your child to the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton. They have a program, but sexual assault centres are not the same across Canada. In Edmonton, you would wait 14 weeks to get your child in, on average. I have known many that have gone through that program.
For me, the program that ended up working was offered by the Hoffman Institute of Canada. You pay for it; it is fairly expensive. It takes you back to deal with your abuse and teaches you to love yourself and get rid of your shame. That has been the only program that I have heard a lot of things about. However, most people cannot afford to take it.
When we ask people to share what resources they have found, there is not a lot. That is the number one thing that I hear about every single day, namely, the lack of resources across this country for both short-term and long-term support for children who have been sexually abused.
Senator Mitchell: You mentioned the need for a national prevention strategy. I had not heard those words before. It makes profound sense on the face of it, and probably more deeply than that. That would require federal-provincial consultation and cooperation, I am sure.
You have been all across the country. Have you consulted or presented to provincial governments? What is your sense of their predisposition of doing this? How would it be structured? Would it be an independent, quasi-independent national secretariat? Is that what you see?
Ms. Meldrum: Believe it or not, I have been much more fortunate meeting with federal politicians than I have in meeting with provincial politicians. Finally, after a number of years of trying to meet with Minister Hancock, the Minister of Education in Alberta, I will be meeting with him on January 4.
We gave a presentation to the Catholic School Board in Edmonton to go in and train all their teachers, bus drivers and administrative people. The application was turned down. To teach our program to one teacher costs $40; that is all. For us to train the 6,000 staff in the Edmonton Catholic school system would cost $50,000 over two years, and it was turned down. We have just been invited to the Blood Reserve in Alberta to train all of the teachers and staff in their schools.
One of my most frustrating things is getting into the school system. It is extremely difficult. Finally, I have a meeting to make my presentation. About 20,000 teachers are trained in our prevention program in the U.S., yet we cannot get the program into the school systems in Alberta. My largest challenge has been getting into the various school systems. The teachers want it, but they cannot get the school boards to approve it. Many teachers are paying $40 out of their own pockets to do so.
The Chair: We have run out of time; in fact, we are over time. I want to thank all presenters for their varying perspectives. We have touched the international aspect, the street level, and have gone across Canada. I thank you for your work and for the time you have taken to share with us. I trust that you will see some of that resonate through our report. Thank you, once again.
On our next panel, by way of video conference, is Richard Estes, Professor and Chair of Social Economic Development, School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania; and Cecilia Benoit, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Victoria. Both are appearing in their own individual capacities.
I would invite Professor Estes to start. We would appreciate short opening statements on points you wish to touch upon, and then I would like to go to questions from senators.
Richard Estes, Professor and Chair, Social Economic Development, School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania, as an individual: Thank you very much for the opportunity to present testimony as part of your hearings into sexually exploited children in Canada. Judging by the minutes of past sessions of this committee, which I have read, I have great confidence that something important will result from your deliberations, and I am happy to be part of those deliberations.
By way of my background, I think it is important for you to know that my role in this work has been as principal investigator in the three-nation study of "Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children'' in Canada, Mexico and the United States. The data collection phase for that project began in the summer of 1999 and continued through to December 2001; however, work on the project and its implementation has continued until the present time.
The Canadian phase of the project began at the same time and was funded by the Canadian Ministry of Justice and was sponsored jointly by my university and the International Bureau for Children's Rights, which has already been represented in this hearing. Professor Pierre Tremblay, Professor of Criminology at the University of Montreal, provided professional leadership for the Canadian study. His particular focus was on the role of pedophiles in the recruitment and passing on of pubescent and pre-pubescent children among other pedophiles within the Montreal area and the greater Quebec region.
Of importance to me was the fact that the networks were so extensive and the children remained in these networks for such an extended period of time. I have provided to the committee links to the report that Dr. Tremblay prepared. These will be made available to you in hard copy as well, if you wish.
The Mexican and U.S. studies were funded by their respective national justice departments, national private foundations, private contributors and, in the case of Mexico, UNICEF Mexico. Local civil society organizations also contributed substantially to the support of the city-specific field research work.
In the U.S., more than 1,000 partners were involved in the research, which covered 17 large American cities, representing 34 per cent of the total U.S. population. The study also involved 14 federal agencies with child sexual exploitation apprehension and prevention mandates, including our National Institute of Justice, the U.S. Department of State, the FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and so on. More than 200 NGOs were also involved in our work.
Each year, approximately 1.3 million to 1.5 million American children run away from home, for a variety of reasons. This is a remarkable number, even by American standards. Many of you may not realize the number of children in our population, but it averages about 80 million. We have a very large number of children. Even for us, the fact that 1 million to 1.5 million children run away from home each year is a staggering number.
The reasons why children run away differ by gender. Most of the girls who run away from home do so because of sexual abuse issues. For boys, it is mostly physical abuse issues. Relatively few children stay away from home for an extended period of time, fortunately. Most return home within a week. Those who stay away from home for longer than a week are the particular group that are of special interest to us because they are the population of children that runs the greatest risk of sexual exploitation.
I have provided links in my brief to the major reports that resulted from the U.S. and Mexican national studies. These will be made available to you in hard copy as well.
In the American study, we found that approximately 240,000 American children, by virtue of the circumstances in which they find themselves, mostly as a result of running away or being thrown away, are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation. This is an extraordinary number. The greatest proportion are children who run away from home; children who run away from juvenile and other institutions; children who are thrown away from home — by that, I mean children who are told to leave home by their parents or caretaker and are told not to return; homeless children and youth who, mostly because of poverty, have no homes to return to; children living in their own homes, usually in single-parent family homes, who engage in commercial sexual activities as a way of contributing to the family economy; other groups of children living in their own homes, such as female gang members or sexual minority and transgender street youth; or groups of children who cross international borders, either as victims, perpetrators, or both, of commercial sexual exploitation. These include American children crossing into Mexico or Canada, or it may also be the case of Mexican or Canadian children crossing into the United States.
We also have non-American children entering the United States legally and illegally, and we have many children who enter the United States as unaccompanied minors. In any given year, we may have as many as 5,000 children who meet the characteristics of this category. We have other children, of course, who are trafficked illegally into the United States without legal documentation.
With regard to the U.S. findings, it is important to note that poverty, though an important motivator for many children, is not the exclusive motivator for commercial sexual exploitation. Among middle- and upper-class children, of which we found many in our study, poverty was not the single most important motivator for these children; rather, psychological factors were the most important motivator. Psychological factors motivated them to engage in survival sex or to earn sufficient income to buy trinkets or objects of material value, income that they could not earn as part of the regular allowances they were receiving from their families or caretakers at home.
As part of my testimony, I am providing the committee with a PowerPoint presentation that identifies the major factors that contribute to the motivations for commercial sexual exploitation of children in their own homes, as well as children who are not living in their own homes. These include factors that contribute to sexual exploitation among poor children, middle-income children, as well as children in well-off families. This presentation also identifies the various forms of commercial sexual exploitation to which children are exposed, as well as the categories of children who are at risk of commercial sexual exploitation. I might add that there are 13 different categories of children at risk, as well as the categories and numbers of children associated with each of these categories of risk, which identifies how we came up with our figure of 240,000 American children at risk.
Another slide illustrates the various social risks to which children are exposed and how commercial sexual exploitation compares with other risks, for example, assaults, rape, murder. It is shocking to see how commercial sexual exploitation compares with these other serious problems to which children are exposed.
I have also submitted a two-volume set of a publication I put together with three pediatricians specializing in commercial sexual exploitation of children as well as an attorney. It is called Medical, Legal and Social Science Aspects of Child Sexual Exploitation. These two volumes should have reached your clerk by this point.
This publication identifies the scope of the problem, as we understand it from our three-nation study. It provides experiential perspectives on commercial sexual exploitation across our three nations, discusses the nature of child pornography and juvenile prostitution, explores the growing dimensions of online sexual solicitation of our youth, frames the discussion for investigation and prosecution related to sexual predation and makes explicit recommendations concerning prevention for all aspects of the commercial sexual exploitation phenomenon.
Honourable senators, by way of conclusion, I would like to briefly highlight some of the most important findings from the U.S. study that I believe have the greatest applicability to the current CSEC situation in Canada.
The first is that CSEC occurs across all social and economic classes. It is not restricted to one social class or to a particular population group.
The second is that poverty is not the sole defining characteristic of CSEC, although it is the case that impoverished children experience CSEC to a greater extent than other children; but children in all income levels are certainly exposed to commercial sexual exploitation.
The third is that psychological factors, including psychopathology, are also defining factors for many children and are certainly reflected in the johns, pimps, traffickers and others who profit from the sexual victimization of children.
Fourth, race and social exclusion may contribute to higher than expected levels of CSEC among particular groups in the population, for example, Canadian Aboriginals, U.S. native Americans and African Americans in the U.S.
Overall, CSEC is a phenomenon of the non-socially excluded and the materially affluent as well.
The fifth point — and I emphasize this — is that boys are nearly as numerous in CSEC as girls. Boys have been among the most neglected among all the groups that have been focused on in terms of the CSEC population.
The sixth point is that transgender and other sexual minority youth have been even more ignored by mainstream agencies than have boys with respect to the CSEC populations. The need cries out loudly for specialized services for sexual minority youth and services for boys to help them deal with the problems that girls and others dealing with CSEC and its consequences must deal with.
Seventh, all child victims of CSEC are also victims of extraordinarily high levels of physical and emotional violence.
Eighth, the threats posed by their pimps and by others who victimize children are rarely idle and are almost always exercised once the adults involved in their victimization have the opportunity.
The ninth point is that victims of CSEC require an entire basket of services as they seek to exit the sex work industry. This is an extraordinarily complex problem to deal with and requires the skills of people in all aspects of human services in order to help these children. No one approach alone will be sufficient in helping these children deal with the consequences.
Finally, I would urge the committee to achieve greater conceptual clarity concerning the range of phenomena that have been presented to it, not all of which have been examples of child sexual exploitation, certainly, not commercial sexual exploitation of children.
I thank you very much for this opportunity and will be very happy to answer as many questions as I can.
The Chair: Thank you, professor.
Now we will turn to Professor Benoit.
Cecilia Benoit, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, as an individual: Thank you very much for allowing me to present in front of this standing committee as well. I am a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Victoria and also a scientist at the Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia. Over the last decade and a half, I have been conducting research using a variety of methodologies to investigate the health of different vulnerable populations, including Aboriginal girls and women in Vancouver's Downtown East Side, homeless male and female youth, as well as adult male and female sex workers and, most recently, pregnant women who are using addictive substances.
The aspect of my research concerning street involved youth began in the late 1990s when I was invited, along with Mikael Jansson, by Justice Canada to evaluate a social intervention program on sexually exploited youth in the Victoria area. We conducted an evaluation of this program, and one of the difficulties was that very few youth emerged or came forward to be part of this program. We, as researchers, decided that it would be interesting to do a comparative study of youth who were street involved and engaged in sex work and other street-involved youth who were not involved in the trading of sex.
We started this project that was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Very early on in the project, we experienced a similar problem. We interviewed street-involved youth, but very few of them indicated they were involved in selling sex.
Instead, we changed our project, which began in 2001, to looking at the health and well-being of street-involved youth, males and females, over time. To be included in the project, the youth had to have low-level attachment to a parent or guardian, low-level attachment to the education system, low-level attachment to the formal economy, and high-level attachment to the informal economy.
This study has continued for four years now and, most recently, we have an extension by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to follow into adulthood these young people who were street involved. We are continuing that study.
At the same time, we have been conducting a random sample study of youth in the Victoria region, asking many similar questions we have been asking the street-involved youth, so that we can have a population comparison. One of the difficulties of understanding sexual exploitation among the youth population, especially the street youth population, which I was asked to talk about today, is that there is often no comparison with the general population. We have thus been conducting a longitudinal study of similar aged youth. Right now, it is entering its fourth wave of interviews, and we will be following those youth into their mid to late 20s.
The second part of my research program I was asked to talk about is my work with adult sex industry workers. I was invited by a community-based organization in Victoria to shed light on the backgrounds, working conditions, health status and life transitions of adult sex workers.
We interviewed 201 adult sex workers, individuals over 18 years of age, and I can report on some of the findings of this study as well. We tried to get a diverse sample, not just interviewing sex workers who were working on the street, where 20 per cent or so are believed to be located, but also interviewing sex workers in a variety of other locations, including their homes, escorts and so on.
Most recently, from 2004 up to now, we have been doing two other longitudinal studies with the aim of comparing adult sex workers and other low-prestige and low-income groups. We have conducted a study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in Victoria, which follows sex workers, hairstylists and food and beverage servers over time. We interviewed 300 of these people in Victoria over four points in time, and we have conducted a similar study in Sacramento, California.
The main reason for these latter studies was to see what was similar and yet different about sex workers compared to other workers and also to study the independent impact stigma on the mental health of all of these workers, but in particular, sex workers, who are highly stigmatized. We also wanted to look at the difficulties that these workers have in accessing health services in the United States compared to Canada where we have a public health care system.
Here are some of the results from our street-based youth studies. Some of the results confirm what was just stated. In our street-based study, roughly 50 per cent are female and 50 per cent are male. I want to remind you that our measures are very conservative, so these are street youth who are not coming downtown for just a short period of time. They have spent a large amount of their time on the street. In our study, the average age when they first became street involved is 17.
Confirming also what was just said, Aboriginal status is quite high; 33 per cent of the street youth studied were Aboriginal versus only 2.4 per cent in the region.
In regard to sexual orientation, in the street youth study only 64 per cent said they were heterosexual, while in the random sample it was 90 per cent.
One issue that I would like to emphasize today is in relation to being in government care at some point in time. Just fewer than 30 per cent of our street youth were in government care at one point in time, versus less than 1 per cent of youth in the general region.
We do not have results on sexual abuse questions available. They are asked in a later wave of our study, but I can report on these questions from the adult study.
What I want to bring out about the street youth study is that compared to the random sample of youth, the youth who are on the street come from backgrounds of relative disadvantage. The parents are much less likely not to have finished high school; one quarter of the parents have not, while 95 per cent of the random sample of youth have.
Unemployment of the parents is also much more common among the social backgrounds for the street population, while most of the random sample parents are more likely to never be unemployed and, at the time of the interview, nearly all were employed.
The second important point is in relation to family stability and personal support. The street youth are much more likely to experience considerable disruption in early childhood. By their thirteenth birthday, less than one quarter of the youth lived in the same situation in which they were born. That was much less the case for the other youth. Sixty per cent of youth in the general population were still in the same family situation that they were born into. In the street youth population, 25 to 30 homes were not uncommon for the young people to experience, on top of being in government care.
I want to point out that the street youth have been, for various reasons, relatively disadvantaged by things that have happened early in their lives and they experience aspects of adulthood much earlier than the random sample. I wanted to give you some examples of that.
Residency: The street youth population has lived without their parents or any biological relative much earlier than the other youth. By age 15, more than half the street youth have lived a whole year without any relative. This was the case for less than 8 per cent of the random sample of youth.
School attendance has the same pattern. By age 15, nearly two thirds of street-involved youth are no longer attending regular school, while virtually all the random sample is.
Financial independence follows the same pattern. Basically, the street youth population is trying to find money much earlier to fend for themselves.
As far as the types of sources, they look for legitimate work and have a hard time finding it. Panhandling, selling drugs and — just for a small portion of them in our study — selling sex was the way they earned their money. They did not earn much money — an average of $70 Canadian per week from all their income sources — but it was what they did in order to survive. The random sample of youth hold part-time jobs, but much of that money is for luxury items rather than for food and shelter.
In regard to partnerships, the street youth population is much more likely to enter relationships that they call personal relationships at an earlier time than the other youth.
Finally, in regard to risky behaviours, we asked our street youth population if they were ever involved in survival sex. Seventeen out of 150 — just less than 12 per cent — reported that they had been involved in survival sex. It was roughly an equal number of males to females — actually one more male than female — and much more likely to be Aboriginal than not. Again, reflecting the other data, they were much more likely to be either homosexual or bisexual than heterosexual.
Another risky behaviour that is important for this group is in regards to substance use. We see our street youth population using substances at an earlier age. By age 18, most of the random sample is also using marijuana and alcohol, but our street youth population is more likely to be using additional addictive drugs.
Finally, I will give a little data on one of our adult sex worker studies, which are all ongoing. We have a diverse sample, both and on and off street, male and female, different sexual orientations. Community-based organizations were very much involved in our study. For this study, the average age was 34; 80 per cent or so were female and 15 per cent were Aboriginal.
We do have information on physical and sexual abuse. About 42 per cent of the sex worker population reported physical abuse and just over 50 per cent reported sexual abuse. Both genders reported high levels of physical and sexual abuse; males more physical and females more sexual.
This is a variable which is very important: Almost 60 per cent were in care at some point in time. A second important variable is that only 40 per cent had completed high school and 60 per cent had not.
When we did our analyses on this group, we found that sex workers on the street are much more likely to be exploited in relationships, to experience violence, from clients, from the general public and also, to a small extent, from the police. This group of sex workers is also much more likely to use intravenous drugs and to experience other kinds of difficulties in their life.
My data are a little different than some of the others because we did not study only individuals who were sexually exploited as young people or as adult sex workers. The lessons we have learned thus far are that we need to support vulnerable families, especially lone parent families, families whose parents are younger and also Aboriginal families; and we need particular services for young people who are street involved. In Canada most of the services end at age 18, and the difficulties of young people in our study, including those involved in survival sex, do not end at age 18. We need tailored services that could help these young people be successful in transitioning to adulthood.
We have to be careful with the use of the victimization perspective. It is highly gendered and mainly concerned with female youth. It does not really speak to the experiences of all youth — many of whom we spoke to in our study — who are street involved.
First, they are not a homogeneous population. Males are as likely as females to be exploited, and youth who are non-heterosexual also face major challenges. The more traditional victimization perspective that we see in some criminology literature should be nuanced in this way.
We need to find out from the youth themselves. We need to get their voices. We need to hear what difficulties they are facing, why they have become involved in survival sex and what dangers they are experiencing, including selling drugs and other kinds of criminal acts, in order to survive.
Our research brings up this kind of picture because, of course, we are not targeting a single activity.
With regard to recommendations, we need to think about interventions that are both at the micro, meso and macro levels. At the micro level, we need to provide services for youth facing psychological challenges, those who have difficulties because of their sexual orientation, who do not fit into a particular framework, and Aboriginal people who have faced discrimination. We need to build their self-esteem and help them with relationship building. At the meso level, we need to support alternative education, training and employment programs and so on. At the macro level, we need interventions to help families stay together when they do work and to improve the quality of government care for children who can no longer stay at home.
In regards to homelessness or street involvement, we need to think about a way to curb the increasing inequality in our society. Many of our youth find themselves increasingly without a home and some have to resort, in part, to survival sex.
The Chair: Thank you. Both of you have given us a lot of information, much of which hinges on your studies. I find it very difficult to respond. I will have to go back, as I did in university, and read about where your studies started and on what premises they are based. I assure you that we will do that.
Senator Dallaire: Professor Estes, how do 1.3 million children drop off the face of an organizational entity such as the school system? When they do drop off, they are now roving.
Mr. Estes: Children do not go unnoticed when they run away or disappear. Police notices immediately go out and a search is commenced. Every effort is made to return these children to their homes.
By the way, children will very often run to other family members, that is to say —
(Technical difficulties.)
The Chair: We have lost the video conference link.
Senator Dallaire: I have a question for the professor, if I may, hoping that the link comes back.
Ms. Benoit, you say 30 per cent of the children have been under government care at one point or another. I think you said 25 per cent, which is an enormous number, only recognize that they have had some sort of a home. Does the concept of home for them, or a reference point where they might be safe, disappear when they move into the street, or does a desire for home stability exist in them or is sought by them?
Ms. Benoit: That is a very good question. We asked the youth who they associate with when they are on the street and how much contact they still had with a mother or father or foster parent. We were surprisingly pleased to learn that many of them, the majority of them — in the range of 60 per cent — were in touch with their mothers and a smaller number with their fathers. Fathers tend to be less present earlier on. A number were in touch with an aunt or uncle, sometimes a social worker.
On top of that, the vast majority of them develop a home while on the street. They have street friends. We often think about these street friends as not being a positive influence, but in many cases they are. They have one person they care for; they may have a group of people they hang out with and connection to a particular service agency. For example, the Victoria Youth Clinic is a very attractive place for young people to go for food and medical treatment, but also for camaraderie.
They do seek those things and are still very positive about their future. We asked them if they feel happy, if they have people to look up to, and the majority of them do. Those who have more difficulties are youth who come from away, from other parts of Canada, sometimes internationally. They are new to the region and are more lonely, more disconnected both with their families as well as with other youth.
Senator Dallaire: If you have contact with a family member of the child on the run, is there a deliberate method of bringing the parent or person who is biologically linked to the child into contact so that a link can be re-established thereby pulling them off the street?
Ms. Benoit: In our study, almost all the street-involved youth were known to the Ministry of Children and Family Development. As you know, 30 per cent were already connected to them. The others were already more or less known because we worked very closely with the ministry in our study. Many of the parents know where their young people are. Some of them are runaways, but the vast majority are not. The vast majority are not hidden, if you like, but there are many reasons they do not want to reside at home — because of their sexual orientation their parents do not want them there or because of, in some cases, sexual abuse going on in the home, and others reasons. We were surprised at the level of knowledge the ministry had of the young people on the streets.
Senator Dallaire: Are we pushing to get the biological families to re-engage? Are we giving them the tools they need to be able to re-engage with the children so as to pull them off the streets? Are we targeting the family?
Ms. Benoit: There are organizations. We work with CAFCA, an organization that tries to connect the young people on the street with their parents. We also work with the Victoria Youth Empowerment Society and other organizations. In some cases, the parents do not have the financial ability to care for the youth or, for other reasons, are not able to. A portion of the young people on the street come from street-involved families, so agencies definitely make efforts to link the youth. However, at least in our study, the youth often come from disadvantaged backgrounds, so we still have that big challenge, and there are fewer and fewer services available for those families to work.
The Chair: We have lost the feed to Professor Estes, but we have all of his information.
Professor Benoit, you have given us a lot of background and research, and we will certainly take it into account in our study.
If we have further questions as we digest this information, I trust that we can come back to both professors for answers.
I would like to thank Professor Benoit and, in his absence, Professor Estes.
(The committee adjourned.)