The number of young sex workers on Victoria streets has more than doubled in recent months, according to an agency that helps sex-trade workers.

In July, the Prostitute Empowerment Education and Resource Society’s night outreach team had 82 contacts with women under 25 years old on the stroll (an area of the city where people in the sex trade are known to work). In March, PEERS made 36 contacts with that age group.

“We need to develop some kind of immediate response because of the severity of what we see going on,” said Chris Leischner, executive director of PEERS.

The non-profit society usually works with women over 25 years old. These women tend to finish work between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. Leischner said younger girls might be just starting work at that time, making them vulnerable to a number of risks.There are no support services, harm-reduction items or reliable safety measures available during those early hours.

Leischner said the first step is to determine the severity of the problem. Informal statistics show the number of contacts with women, not the actual number working on the stroll.

PEERS collects data for women under 25, but there’s no way to know how many of those are minors. They don’t have a separate category for those under 19.

PEERS estimates there are about 1,500 sex workers in the city, but there’s no way to track exact numbers.

“There’s prostitutes that work in escort agencies, there’s prostitutes that work online, there’s prostitutes that work on the street, so it’s pretty tough to put a number on them,” said Sgt. Grant Hamilton, Victoria police spokesperson.

He said officers regularly patrol the stroll and conduct “john stings” once or twice a year. On average, about six arrests are made during the undercover operations.

Leischner met with other service providers Monday, to share ideas and concerns about youth working on the street.

Representatives from the Vancouver Island Health Authority, the Ministry of Public Safety, harm reduction groups, local police and other service providers had similar concerns and observations.

Some groups had contact with girls as young as 14.

“There’s been very little data collected of (girls under 19 years old) out on the stroll,” said Det.-Sgt. Todd Wellman of the Victoria police special victim’s unit.

“There’s the odd one that comes in ... I’d be interested to know if there’s duplicates or not, and if there is a problem. Ten (girls) is a problem, one is a problem, but we’ll deal with it in different ways if there’s a few versus a whole bunch.”

lweighton@vicnews.com