Letting Kids Be Kids

Teen-age girls love being together in social situations. Talking excitedly together, shopping excursions, sleepovers, just having fun. A 13-year-old girl in Ottawa was exposed to more fun of a variety that might never otherwise have entered her mind when she accepted an invitation to a sleepover at the home of girls whom she didn't know all that well. She would, over a short period of time, get to know them much, much better.

And that started with the initial event of the sleepover. When, she recounted, she was forced to change her clothing and put on a skimpy white dress. And when she obediently and perhaps fearfully did that, she was informed "you're going to have sex tonight". That was in June 2012. The people who forced and threatened her were not pimply, gangly-limbed young men looking to make some money pimping. They were two 15-year-old girls.

When a 13-year-old suddenly finds that girls several years older are being friendly to her and make overtures toward her, she likely feels very flattered. The 15-year-olds stuck the 13-year-old, suitably attired to tempt older men with the potential for a sexual encounter, into an underground cab; presumably one operating without a licence in Ottawa. One sat beside her on the back seat and slapped her in the face when she refused to cooperate.

That didn't stop them from taking her to an apartment. Where an "old", balding man in a neighbourhood she was unfamiliar with, lived. She was delivered to his apartment and he locked her into a bedroom. The while the two teen girls of 15 waited outside. "That's when he told me to go on the other side of the room", the young girl testified.

She wasn't touched by the "old", balding man who instead informed her that the two 15-year-olds had previously brought young girls to him against their will. When 20 to 30 minutes had passed, the girl and the man exited the bedroom, and both claimed they'd had sex, and money changed hands. The two older girls were arrested and charged with human trafficking in June of 2012.

Now on trial accused of threatening, beating and blackmailing other girls. Whom they would give alcohol or narcotic pills to, to have them lose consciousness so they could be disrobed and photographs taken of them for pornographic purposes. The photos were also used as blackmail, to force the young girls to agree to sell their bodies for sex, handing over to them the money that was exchanged for that service.

The 13-year-old described being drugged after she left the man's apartment. She claimed to have had a headache, whereupon one of the older girls pushed a pill into her mouth. "She checked my whole mouth to make sure I took it. I was really confused", she said. Told the pill was an Advil, only to discover later it was an ecstasy pill, whose effect was to make her vomit.

The girl's mother had testified earlier how frantic she had been, trying to find out where her daughter was. She was texting and calling her daughter through the cellphone of her daughter's friend, until finally her daughter showed up at the door. Wearing a dress the mother had never before seen, stiletto heels and a trench coat. "What the hell is going on?", she asked angrily.

As her daughter wobbled against a wall she responded by saying to her mother: "Why didn't you come get me?" The mother had received responses to her anxious texts received through the friend's cellphone. One of which read "Why are you treating me like a baby?", by the very same girl who had been forcing her 13-year-old daughter to perform degrading and dangerous acts.

When the mother saw the bruises and marks on her daughter's body she wanted to call the police. Her daughter begged her not to. "They're going to kill me", the girl said in genuine fear. "I didn't know if my daughter had been sexually assaulted at that point", the mother testified, speaking of the time she called police, asking to speak with a female officer.