Pimping has not been reduced in Quebec and Quebec, according to a criminologist who also believes that Montreal and Quebec are centers of youth prostitution.
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The victims are still just as young and the trial is not conducive to a conviction, according to some advocacy groups.
For Geneviève Quinty, director general of the Quebec Prostitution Intervention Project (PIPQ), the evidence is often based solely on the victim’s testimony.
In his eyes, girls who have suffered trauma and aggression, sometimes in a state of consumption, no longer necessarily remember what happened to them.
Catherine Proulx is a clinical associate specializing in sexual exploitation. Though she claims the modus operandi is similar, she’s seen changes in recruitment methods in recent years, which she says are more aggressive.
Social media has also changed the game. In two decades, they’ve blown up the pimps’ playground and investigators have had to adapt.
As Marie-Manon Savard, Detective Lieutenant of the Quebec City Police Service, points out, investigators are using state-of-the-art methods and making sure they are aware of the emerging phenomena.
In accordance with the recommendations of the Special Commission on the Sexual Exploitation of Minors, the government strengthened the ability of the EILPs, the Integrated Squads for the Fight against Pimping coordinated by the Sureté du Québec, to act.
Three squads and police organizations from across the province are working together on the process. More than 100 arrests have been made since October 2021.
Karine Lacroix, captain in charge of the anti-pimp service, says more than 200 victims have been hit in the past year. 121 of them have decided to file a complaint and continue the court proceedings.
For criminologist Maria Mourani, one of the biggest turning points in this area came in 2014 with the passage of the Law on the Protection of Communities and Victims of Exploitation. According to the former federal deputy, this law came to protect the victims.
“We criminalized the purchase of sexual services and we criminalized advertising. (…) In law, it can sell its services, but it cannot have customers. So it’s the customer that’s being addressed, not them.”
But in the eyes of the criminologist, there is still a lot to do. “There are still very few arrests of prostitutes than me. This industry generates billions of dollars. Am I to believe that we only have a hundred prostitutes a year? I don’t believe in that.”
Since Scorpion, Ms. Savard says responders have had better clout. “The first thing that strikes you is of course the collaboration. In the beginning, everyone worked in silos.
For nothing in the world would the stakeholders in this area not come back, as the director general of the PIPQ said. “Collaborative approaches now, we couldn’t go back, we couldn’t go back, working in silos. Sexual exploitation is a phenomenon that drives us, whether we like it or not, to work with partners.”
Partners make great stories, as Catherine Proulx points out. “We see people rebuilding themselves, people being able to reconnect to their network (…) and then maybe realizing other parts through them that they want to highlight.”