With “shocking, shocking” new statistics showing a spike in the number of girls and young women being trafficked out of London hotels, police are looking into bringing human trafficking prevention education programs to elementary and high schools in the city.

In 2016, London police rescued seven girls and young women from traffickers, said Det. Mike Hay, the head of London’s new human trafficking unit.

“There’s a lot of victims in London, right now. We’re going to do everything we can to help everyone we can, but I think we’re just scraping the surface.”

During a presentation to the police services board Thursday, Hay painted an alarming picture of teenagers as young as 14 being controlled by pimps and offered for sale on a website used by escorts.

And while human trafficking is a “huge problem,” across the province, London is known as a hub for the crime, said Hay.

“This might sound overly dramatic. It’s not,” said Hay in a presentation to the police services board during which he suggested board members go online and “have a look,” for themselves. “If you Google ‘escorts, London, Ont.,’ Backpage(.com) is the first one that’s going to come up. If you click on the first four ads you’ve probably looked at a person that’s trafficked.”

He said he and two other officers from the unit attended a conference last week and six Crown attorneys dedicated to human trafficking in the Greater Toronto Area mentioned London “in particular,” as a place where human trafficking is occurring.



An undercover officer with the London Police human trafficking unit reports to the London Police Services board on Thursday January 19, 2017. (MORRIS LAMONT, The London Free Press)

Moments before the presentation, he checked Backpage.com — a website used by escorts to sell services — and found 57 ads for escort services in London.

Of those, Hay said police believe a quarter of the ads, nearly 15, were for girls and young women who are being controlled and trafficked out of London hotels by pimps.

“It’s a shocking, shocking thing,” said Hay, who noted officers who posed as escorts during “john sting” investigations received texts from up to 70 people from all over the province.

The statistics Hay presented — showing a spike in the number of potential sex trafficking victims identified by police and nearly double the number of suspected traffickers in 2016, compared to the year before — fall into line with some numbers released by the London Abused Women’s Centre last week.

LAWC works with victims of human trafficking and their families and runs a program that aims to reach at-risk women and girls. Of 186 prostituted women LAWC has worked with since September 2015, 158 identified themselves as being sex trafficked, said executive director Megan Walker, who was at the board meeting Thursday.

“We’ve served 57 families so far, and what we’ve found is that most of those families will follow their daughters’ transportation route. They’re actually going on Backpage.com every single day to see what the pimps are offering their daughters up for . . . horrendous, horrendous things that these girls have to go through,” said Walker. “That’s so traumatizing.”

Walker said the new unit dedicated to human trafficking is long overdue. She wants to see more of a focus on charging johns — those who buy sex from escorts. In Canada, it is not a crime to sell sexual services, but it is a crime to buy them.

The presentation appeared to shock board members Thursday.

“The silence you are hearing from the board is just grave concern for the women involved,” said Mayor Matt Brown.

jlobrien@postmedia.com

--- --- ---

Human trafficking

Suspected traffickers in London:

2016: 111 potential victims,

81 suspected traffickers.

2015:88 potential victims,

33 suspected traffickers.

2014: 41 potential victims,

36 suspected traffickers.

Charges related to human trafficking: Offences include weapons, forcible confinement, sexual exploitation, bail violations, intimidation, assault and threats, discovered while officers are investigating sex trafficking.

2016: 74

2015: 44

2014: 25

How it happens: Police and victims’ advocates say trafficking often begins with a victim being groomed by an older man who showers the victim with gifts and attention. Soon, the boyfriend will mention financial problems and escorting comes up as a “temporary solution,” but then goes on, including psychological, physical and sexual abuse.