Article content

The small girl cut through the crowd filling the Edmonton Law Courts foyer on a late July morning.

Instead of heading off to summer camp, to a lake, or the playground, the eight-year-old was going for lunch — a break after hours of waiting to testify at a trial of a 36-year-old man accused of sexually interfering with her when she was just five years old.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Alberta agencies grapple with rise in sexual offences against children, child-porn cases Back to video

Despite the circumstances, the little girl smiled as she clutched the leash of a yellow Labrador retriever, one of three Zebra Child Protection Centre dogs who provide comfort to children testifying in court.

By mid-afternoon, after a number of attempts to postpone proceedings, the accused decided to plead guilty to interference and other allegations related to luring, communicating to facilitate child prostitution, and possessing and distributing child pornography.

Recently released 2016 police-reported crime data from Statistics Canada shows that sexual violations against children and child pornography offences are both on the rise in Canada, and Alberta is no exception.

Nationally, there were 6,917 reported sexual violations of children in 2o16, up from 5,256 in 2015. Canada-wide reported child pornography offences jumped to 6,245 incidents in 2016 from 4,380 incidents in 2015. In Alberta from 2015 t0 2016, total sexual offences against children rose to 749 from 605, and child pornography related offences went to 367 from 279.