Five teenagers rescued from the dangerous world of sex trafficking by Toronto police were flown out to B.C. in the past year — because there were no local resources to treat them.

Ontario is home to the largest number of domestic sex trafficking cases in Canada, but the Star has found the funding it puts forward to combat this issue seriously lags behind smaller jurisdictions.

The province’s sole safe house for trafficked victims reluctantly closed its doors in August because it was “desperately under-funded.”

The last time Ontario made a direct investment towards human trafficking victim services was in 2011 when it committed $1.95 million over three years, a government official has confirmed.

During that same year, Manitoba, a province with a population 10 times smaller, invested $8 million on its anti-trafficking programs.

Over the past two months, the Star has been investigating “The Game” —domestic sex trafficking in Ontario — and found this is not only one of the province’s biggest secrets, but also one of its fastest growing crimes. Seasoned detectives estimate the number of victims to be in the thousands.

Human sex trafficking is the manipulation and coercion of girls, many in their mid-teens and some as young as 12, into prostitution by pimps who act as boyfriends, isolate them from their families, move them from city to city and rob them of their earnings.

Welfare agencies who work with these victims have been calling out for more resources to battle this growing crime for years, the Star’s investigation found.

Ontario’s Attorney General Madeline Meilleur told the Star Monday the government takes human trafficking “very seriously.”

“While we have made advances when it comes to sexual assault and violence… we recognize that further action is needed when it comes to human trafficking and we are committed to being part of the solution to this problem,” Meilleur said.

Karlee Sapoznik, co-founder of the Alliance Against Modern Slavery (AAMS), said Ontario “urgently” needs to fund shelters and develop a province-wide action plan to combat human trafficking.

“It’s the largest province with the largest population and the largest number of cases, yet Alberta, Manitoba and B.C. all have provincial action plans and Ontario does not,” Sapoznik said.

All across the GTA, young Canadian girls are being beaten, branded, bought and sold along our highways and in our hotels. A Star investigation into the dark underbelly of domestic sex trafficking in Ontario.

For Michele Anderson, sex-trafficking specialist at Toronto’s Covenant House, the reason for this lack of action is “plain and simple.”

“It has not been a priority here,” said Anderson, whose agency is set to open a safe house for victims of trafficking in late spring 2016. It will hold up to seven residents, aged 16 to 24.

“We’ve got to begin somewhere and this is at least a start,” Anderson said.

In August, Timea Nagy, a trafficked survivor herself, was forced to close down Walk With Me, a victim services organization she founded which ran the only safe house in the province.

During the past few months, the Star spoke to two victims of trafficking who were housed at Walk With Me after escaping The Game. One of those victims was Taylor a 24-year-old woman who was forced to turn tricks in strip clubs from Hamilton to Niagara and had nowhere to go after running from her trafficker.

Taylor, who is not using her real name because of fears for her safety, is just one of 450 Ontario trafficking cases that Walk With Me was involved in over the past five years.

Nagy said she pleaded for provincial funding to keep the service open, but four months ago she gave up.

At the time, Walk With Me had 11 ongoing cases, dozens of victims that needed support through the courts and 39 police agencies counting on them.

Toronto Police Sex Crimes Unit Commander Joanna Beaven-Desjardins said without social welfare agencies like Walk With Me and Covenant House, “the police human trafficking department would be shut down completely.”

In the past year, Toronto police had no choice but to move five teenagers aged 15 to 17, all facing “extreme circumstances,” out to a long-term safe house in B.C.

“There are lots of different agencies that can help here, but nothing long-term like in B.C.,” Beaven-Desjardins said.

The Star’s investigation heard from trafficked victims who said when they got out of The Game they were malnourished, couldn’t sleep, were afraid of men, addicted to drugs, and could not make any independent decisions.

Deborah’s Gate is a high-security residential safe house and rehabilitation program for survivors of human trafficking in B.C.

When victims arrive at the centre, they usually have severe compounded mental trauma and some stay for up to two years, spokeswoman Larissa Maxwell said.

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They suffer from nightmares and flashbacks and ask staff permission when eating or going to the bathroom.

“Away from the chaos everything goes quiet — every pain, every memory, every moment of violence comes up. The road to rehabilitation is a very difficult one,” Maxwell said.

“The impacts on these individuals are devastating and that’s why survivors of trafficking are different. They can’t be looked at like other victims because they have been robbed of every part of their humanity.”

A number of Toronto-based social workers the Star spoke to mirrored Maxwell’s concern and said victims of sex trafficking cannot be placed in domestic violence or homeless shelters.

Some of these girls have been severely beaten, starved, injected with heroin, confined in rooms and forced to have sex all through the night.

“This is a different trauma to domestic violence and those shelters don’t work,” Anderson said.

“There’s a very negative stereotype against trafficked victims that she’s a prostitute and if she feels stigmatized, she will run.”

Carly Kalish, a therapist at East Metro Youth Services who has worked with up to 60 trafficked girls in the past year, said the lack of safe houses and resources in Ontario specifically for these victims was a “huge problem.”

“You pull them out, but you can’t offer them any resources and they go right back in,” she said.

Katarina MacLeod, founder of the Rising Angels advocacy and awareness organization for sex trade workers, said it’s better to leave a young girl under the control of her pimp then encourage her to escape and leave her stranded.

“If you don’t have a plan for them, don’t bother trying. You’re going to give them hope and then they’ll have nothing and go back and get the s**t beaten out of them,” she said.

When MacLeod first started rescuing these victims, she was so frustrated at the lack of resources that she brought them into her own home, with her own children.

“These are somebody’s daughters. I taught them how to cook, clean, dress and talk without slang. They call me ‘Mumma Kat.’ They were so broken it's like retraining a child,” she said.

MORE ON THESTAR.COM

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How a young girl became a victim of sex trafficking

Human trafficking of young girls in Ontario must be tackled by police crime force, say MPPs

Olivia Carville can be reached at (416) 814-2765 or ocarville@thestar.ca