How it all Began...

 [Article by  Gerry Bellett of the Vancouver Sun]

It was August and she was barely 14, but all the natural cuteness from that pinched face had long gone.

She was a prisoner of the court -- a revealing predicament that often exaggerates what people strive to hide most -- so it was the composed nonchalance that ate up her mother's heart.

And the look towards her mother, when it did come, was devoid of curiosity, as though she were glancing at the jug of water sitting beside the judge's elbow.

The mother, hoping for a smile, a raised eyebrow, anything, began to cry without noise, just tears running down her face until the sheriff reached over and handed her a tissue.

If nothing, this human theatre disproved the old proverb of blood being thicker than water.

This was not her flesh and blood before the court. The child was adopted.

Yet the mother's agony rose from a spiritual maternity as deep as anything physical.

Six years before when she had adopted the child, Di -- as the mother shall be called -- had been as elated as she now was tortured.

How could so many good intentions go awry?

Why had so much promise dissolved into this, a child bent on self-destruction participating in prostitution and things her adoptive mother says ``no grown woman, let alone a child, should ever be exposed to.''

Di has hit rock bottom so many times with her daughter that it's impossible to reckon the lowest point.

Was it when she ran away from home a few days after her thirteenth birthday for a life on the streets?

When she realized she'd never return?

That she was a drug addict?

When her daughter slit her wrists lengthwise along the arteries for maximum effect?

That her young body was being sold to men?

Or was it this warm August afternoon in court when she appeared so finally unreachable?

For all its private tragedy, the story of Di and her child reflects a public one: how in a society that believes itself humane can child prostitution flourish?

Why are the police, the courts and the social services so impotent in the face of what is an apparent evil?

Sixteen months ago Di would never have been able to explain it.

Today she could give seminars.

``During that time I've been in and out of court and I've heard people sitting there saying these kids must come from terrible homes and their parents should be sued for what they've done,'' she said.

``I've talked to social workers, probation officers, police, politicians -- you name it -- but the fact is, if a child decides to go out and do what she likes there are no resources for the parents to prevent it.

``You have no right to protect the child against itself.

``It's that simple. The courts, the police, social services -- no one will do anything.

``There have been times I've prayed for her to commit a crime so that she could be arrested and held in jail. Do you know how hard it is for a mother to do that?

``But if it was a choice between her being on the streets -- into drugs and prostitution -- and being in jail I'll take jail.''

Her solution to the problem of child prostitution would send civil libertarians into a swoon.

``You need to be able to hold children against their will, force them to accept treatment. But the law's not prepared to do this and so these kids are lost.''

The general assumption by those whose vocation puts them in touch with these lost kids, is they are on the street because it's better than living at home being sexually abused.

This case proves the exception.

The psychological problems buried deep in this child's psyche came as part of the adoption package. Her parents believe she was abused by her natural father with the effects eventually surfacing when she was about 12.

Her mother has kept a diary of all that has happened since the day she left home. It would take a briefcase to hold it.

This record is stuffed with notes of her escapades, police reports, probation reports, court findings, prison documents, logs of foster homes where she was sent and umpteen reports of her running away; meetings her mother's had with politicians and her daughter's few letters -- all a sad counterpoise to the family photo album that sits over the fridge recording happier times.

The family lives comfortably in a spacious house in Coquitlam.

Both parents operate their own businesses and live the middle-class life, large swimming pool out back, nice cars in the driveway.

Di owns a market research company but lately has spent so much time fighting to recover her daughter that she's had to hire other people to run the company.

``I must spend 30 hours a week on this. I don't know how I could have done that if I was working for someone else.''

She has been lobbying, cajoling -- downright harassing in some instances -- officialdom to find ways to manoeuvre her daughter into a position where she can be kept off the streets and given counselling.

For 16 months she has had little success, but now after her child has spent the last two months -- drug free -- in High Valley, a juvenile detention facility near Logan Lake, her daughter appears to be reconsidering her lifestyle.

Di hardly dare hope she's coming around.

``She's told me that she doesn't want to go back to Vancouver, she's afraid of being killed by some of the people she was mixed up with. And there's some sign she wants to get off drugs.

``But it makes me so angry that it's come after so much pain. If they'd have helped me 16 months ago she would never have fallen into so much trouble, she would never have got so hooked on drugs or into prostitution.

``All I was asking was for her to be taken off the streets, protected against herself, but no one would do it.''

Now that her daughter has made the first steps towards her in 16 months, Di is facing different problems.

``The big thing was what was going to happen once she leaves High Valley?

``She needs drug and alcohol abuse counselling but there's really nowhere for her to go in B.C. The only juvenile counselling centre is in downtown Vancouver -- so that's out.

``She needs intensive treatment -- months of counselling -- but she's not going to get it. I really don't think she's ready for release,'' she said.

Her daughter has balked at enroling in any treatment centre where her freedom will be curtailed. She's agreed to live in a foster home and attend day treatment.

Even that's an enormous step, says her mother.

``It's the first positive sign I've seen since she left home and it's only come about because she was sent to High Valley -- held there against her will and given time for withdrawal -- something we've been pleading for for 16 months.''

High Valley Youth Custody Centre is found along the road which winds upwards through the hills outside Merritt.

Kay, as the girl will be called, was sent there after spending two months in the Willingdon Youth Detention Centre in Burnaby.

High Valley is built on the grounds of a former ranch and activities here are designed around the ranching lifestyle, riding horses, looking after cattle.

It's Nov. 1 and the open custody prison is covered by the first snowfall of the season.

``Mr. Finlay, in 21 days I'm out of here,'' Kay tells director Murray Finlay as the pair walk from the canteen to the administration block.

``No. You like it too much,'' he teases her. ``You'll want to stay on.''

But the skewed little smile said otherwise. This was a 14-year-old craving freedom.

Leaving home in the summer of 1993 was driven by the same desire.

``Why did I go? I didn't want to follow rules -- like being there on time for meals, not staying out late.

``The rules weren't hard but I was hanging out with friends who had no rules. Their parents didn't care what they did. So I wanted my freedom, too.''

What she found on the streets of Vancouver wasn't freedom, merely a different set of rules. Though these were designed by drug dealers and pimps.

And breaking their rules was infinitely worse than defying her mother's.

The irony is absolute. She ran away to find freedom but instead fell into slavery.

She won't talk about all the things she saw and did except she's afraid she'll be killed if she ever goes back to downtown Vancouver.

``I just know I can't go down there anymore.''

Since her court appearance in August, Kay appears to have thrived.

No longer gaunt or pale, she's put on weight and some of that adolescent gracefulness seems to have returned. But still the look is guarded. There's no wisdom there, only experience.

So what happened once she left home?

``It was summer and me and my friends partied a lot. We'd sleep in the park, drink and do drugs. That first week we stole a car and eight of us went camping in Squamish.

``At the end of summer all my friends went back home and I was out there all by myself. I was doing lots of drugs, pot and acid. And now it's winter.''

She'd fallen in with drug dealers in the Coquitlam area and eventually she met ``this guy from Surrey and along the way he turned out to be a pimp.''

She was 13 years old and the pimp, a man in his twenties, turned her into a procurer.

``He started getting me to recruit other girls into prostitution.

``I'd get money from him, hundreds of dollars, and lots of drugs and we'd drive around and hit different schools.

``I'd go in and show girls the money and the drugs and give them cigarettes laced with heroin and they'd get high.

``Some of them wanted to try prostitution 'cos I'd talked them into it and told them how great it was.''

``These girls were 14 and 15, going to school and living at home. This guy I was with was good-looking and he pretended he liked them.

``I remember getting one girl into an escort service,'' she said.

Then one night she and another young girl were told to go on a ``double date'' with two men they were to meet at the Lougheed Mall.

``These two (guys) picked us up and took us downtown to a motel. We were drinking and doing drugs and were pretty high and then they started talking about how nice they'd be -- giving us a place to live and money and all the drugs -- when we worked for them.

``I didn't realize until then they were pimps and we'd been sold to them. My friend started getting mouthy and said she wouldn't work for them so they beat her up.

``I didn't say anything but when they weren't looking we ran away.''

Then she fell in with a drug dealer and gave sex in return for cocaine and then earlier this year began hanging out with some members of a street gang.

All the time she was using cocaine and her drug debts were mounting.

``I don't know how much, but it was thousands. Then the dealers started hassling me saying I had to pay it off and I'd say f--- you and run for it.

``They said they'd kill me if I didn't pay them. They expected me to get the money hooking.''

In the early summer she began working the streets standing at the corner of Broadway and Windsor from twilight to dawn with another prostitute who was 14, a year older.

She said she did well by it.

``I'd get lots of dates -- about 40 a week -- and made lots of money. I'd buy clothes. I took friends out who were living on the street, buy drugs, the usual stuff.''

One man picked her up and convinced her to live with him.

``He's a drug dealer and he's crazy but I went to live with him. He wanted me to convince this friend of mine to leave her pimp and come and work for him.

``At first I didn't know how nuts he was.

``Sometimes he'd start to strangle me and stop and ask me if I trusted him. Then he'd say he loved me.

``Once he ripped all my clothes off and chased me around the house with a rifle, another time he held an Exacto knife to my throat and said how nice I'd look if I had a scar on my face.

``But he was a big dealer so I wasn't worried anymore about those other dealers,'' she said.

Her boyfriend didn't let her go with other men or do drugs, but she did drugs anyway behind his back, she said.

What else was going on she won't talk about.

``I had a real busy schedule and was involved in lots of things I shouldn't have been. So I never really ever thought about how bad it was there or of getting away.''

What saved her was being arrested.

During her career on the street she was officially under the care of the social services ministry.

She had set a school on fire shortly after leaving home and part of her sentence was that she be placed in foster care and live under supervision.

But she breached her probation so many times eventually the police yanked her off the street.

On Aug. 4 she and another girl were ``having a party'' with some men in a Vancouver hotel room which appears to have gotten out of hand.

Her friend escaped and ran to the police saying she'd been raped. When officers arrived they found Kay.

Before long she was placed in Willingdon Youth Detention Centre and from there came to High Valley.

She's quite certain the police saved her life.

``He (her boyfriend) would have killed me, or I'd have ended up killing myself. He was crazy.''

But when she was first in Willingdon all she wanted was get out of jail and go back to her boyfriend.

But the longer she was confined the more she thought about it.

``When you're running around and mixed up in all this stuff you don't stop to think. I would have gone back to him then but not now.''

Given all that has happened, she admitted she should never have left home.

How about her mother's argument for holding children against their will?

``If they are breaking the law, maybe they shouldn't get a choice,'' she said.

``They stuck me in jail then let me out on the street. I should have gotten drug and alcohol treatment.''

If that's so why won't she go into a residential treatment program when she leaves High Valley?.

The answer, an old refrain from one so young, shows the gulf between philosophy and self-interest.

``I've been in jail for four months. I don't want anymore curfews. All I want is my freedom.''