INSIDE: Inside the booth with the Bruins’ play-by-play man Pg. 11 October 12, 2010
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LOCAL NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER & ENTERTAINMENT chilliwacktimes.com
Sexploitation on our streets
Modern day slavery exists right here in Chilliwack
BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
BY CORNELIA NAYLOR cnaylor@chilliwacktimes.com
O
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ocal residents who think human trafficking is about poor people arriving in Canada on boats might be surprised to learn that people are trafficked right here in Chilliwack
every day.
Young women from Asia, Africa or Community Services Youth Services Eastern Europe may be the face of worker will make presentations and the issue, but human trafficking— then field questions from the audiaccording to the United Nations def- ence Lewis, whose experience with inition—happens any time a person is exploited for money through sex human trafficking dates back to her days as a child sex abuse or forced labour. And those people don’t have to prosecutor in South Africa in the mid-1980s, will put the issue into come from far away. “It’s a problem everywhere,” said a global context while debunking Janneke Lewis, a North Vancouver the stubborn misconception that lawyer and activist who has pre- it is a problem that happens elsesented at a UN conference on the where. “A lot of people seem to think topic. “One of the things that people don’t seem to realize about human that trafficking happens ‘out there, trafficking is that what’s called the to them,’ that it doesn’t happen to sex trade is human trafficking. Any our people, but it does,” she said. person that has a pimp is being traf- “It happens to kids in the local high ficked because they’re being con- school.” Kim Lloyd, HIV/AIDS prevention trolled.” Lewis will be in Chillwack Thurs- co-ordinator for Pacific Community Resources Society, day to speak at a which works with forum aimed at “A lot of people seem to addicts in Chilliraising awareness think that trafficking wack’s downtown about the sexual core, has seen the exploitation of happens ‘out there, to result. women and girls them.’” She estimates in Chilliwack and as many as 200 in the rest of the Janneke Lewis women and girls world. work in the ChilliPut on by the wack sex trade, Chilliwack chapter of Soroptimist International, and she has noticed a disturbing Sexploitation (as the event has been trend. “As of late I have been seeing some dubbed) will bring together a panel of people who encounter human new faces,” she said, “and when I’m trafficking on the streets of Chilli- talking about new faces, I’m talking about young girls.” wack daily. While her regular clients are in An RCMP community youth officer, a Fraser Health addictions their late 20s and early 30s, the “new worker, the HIV/AIDS prevention faces” she’s seeing are as young as co-ordinator for Pacific Community 14. The men and boys who traffic Resources Society and a Chilliwack
Gravel fight not over yet
Mark van Manen/Vancouver Sun
A forum on sexual exploitation of women and girls is in Chilliwack this week. them range in age from about 16 to 40, she said, and their method of recruiting girls into the sex trade follows a predictable pattern. They befriend vulnerable girls, posing as their boyfriends, and get them hooked on drugs. When it comes time to pay up for the free drugs, the girls—unable to pay—are forced to perform sexual favours, often for friends at first and then for strangers.
It’s a lucrative business, according to Lloyd. “Depending on what kind of sexual favours they’re providing, the girls take in anywhere from $20 to $150,” she said, “and all of that money goes back to whoever is pimping them out. If they’re looking after eight or 10 customers a day, that’s quite a substantial amount.” In one of only three cases of See SEXPLOITATION, page 6
pponents of a controversial gravel mine in the Chilliwack River Valley that was recently given approval say the fight isn’t over. The Friends of the Chilliwack River Valley announced it would appeal the decision by the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum to approve the 40-hectare gravel mine proposed by Southview Sorting. The mine’s opponents in the valley have expressed concern for a number of reasons, but the main issues are trucks on Chilliwack Lake Road and possible contamination of the local aquifer. Meanwhile, the Fraser Valley Regional District (FVRD) is currently holding public meetings to discuss a provincial plan that, if implemented prior to the application, would have designated the Larsen’s Bench location “red,” or unsuitable for gravel mining. The Aggregate Pilot Project (APP) was initiated by the Minister of State for Mines in 2004 in response to persistent and intense conflicts surrounding aggregate operations in the FVRD. The purpose is to develop a set of recommendations for industry, local governments and the provincial government to reduce conflicts and secure a long-term stable supply of gravel. The next meeting is Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. for electoral areas D and E at the FVRD boardroom in Chilliwack, 45950 Cheam Ave. A copy of the APP recommendation report is available at the FVRD office in Chilliwack and online at www.fvrd.bc.ca. For information contact the planning department at 604-702-5000, toll-free at 1-800528-0061 or e-mail planninginfo@ fvrd.bc.ca.
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