HEAD: Police, outreach workers disagree on number of youth on the stroll

Lisa Weighton

News staff

 The number of sexually exploited youth in Victoria could be increasing, but it depends who you ask.

PEERS, a resource society for prostitutes, said it's seeing more young faces than ever on the streets. In a privately funded survey conducted last month, PEERS found 11 sexually exploited youth aged 18 and under on and around the stroll.

Two former sex-workers conducted the survey at various locations and times in the first week of September. They finished the second part of the survey last week.

“It's been the last while that it's really skyrocketed,” said Kelly Ransome, 32, a night outreach worker and former sexually exploited youth.

But Victoria police only found two underage youth in a three-week survey they conducted from Aug. 14 to Sept 4.

Both were between 16 and 18 years old.

Det. Sgt. Todd Wellman of the special victims unit said this is “nothing new and no big surprise,” and is confident with his findings.

The survey was in response to concerns PEERS had this summer after noticing a jump in the number of contacts they had with young women under 25.

That’s when both groups decided to look into the number of minors on the stroll.

While plainclothes and uniformed officers hit the streets, Wellman said PEERS staff are less threatening and more approachable, possibly accounting for the discrepancy.

But he’s also skeptical because PEERS didn’t ask to see ID.

“They have a very informal approach, and they're trying to build relationships with people, so they don't get into the details and the data that we are interested in,” he said.

The chair of the Capital Youth Action Team for sexually exploited youth has supported PEERS throughout the survey and said the methodology is sound.

"When you go down there, you can pretty quickly tell when someone is young ... and so the people who have gone through this experience themselves are probably in a better position to judge what's going on," said Bill McElroy.

Another recent survey PEERS conducted found that 70 per cent of older sex workers reported new young girls on the street.

Wellman said he will continue to work with PEERS as even one child on the street is a problem.

“Is it something we should be concerned about as police and as community service agent providers? Yes, but it doesn't mean that we will need to pull out all the stops and focus on this only,” he said.

PEERS plans to meet with the Capital Region Action Team next month to decide on their next steps.

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