An advocacy group is rushing to the defence of a 14-year-old girl accused of recruiting other teens into the sex industry.
Vancouver-based Justice For Girls is demanding RCMP in Chilliwack drop pimping charges against the teen who allegedly recruited at least two other girls into prostitution, and who, police claim, posed as an 18-yearold when posting erotic ads on classifieds website Craigslist.
"By charging this young woman as a pimp, the police are violating a well established consensus [held] in Canada and internationally that teen girls in prostitution are victims of child sexual abuse and therefore should not be treated as criminals," said Justice For Girls spokeswoman Annabel Webb.
Webb asserted adult males, who she believes are responsible for commercial sexual abuse, should face the full force of the law.
Crown approved two charges of sexual assault against David Thomas Hilpert, 51, who allegedly solicited the 14-year-old girl. He was released from custody under numerous conditions and next appears before a judge on Dec. 14.
The young madame, who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, faces one count of procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution.
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Sketch
- Reporter
- Dharm Makwana currently serves as a web editor at The Province, British Columbia's best read daily newspaper. For more than four years he wrote on issues affecting the Lower Mainland for the province's third largest daily newspaper Vancouver 24 hours. Before arriving in Vancouver in January 2007, Dharm won the John Lott Scholarship for outstanding journalism at Centennial College. Since then Dharm has developed an interest in municipal and provincial politics, crime and policing and social issues including immigration, prostitution and trafficking. He is currently working on a series of stories involving Vancouver's sex workers.
Wisdom
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