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Our Mission

 

We take a proactive approach through public awareness, education and prevention strategies to decrease the number of sexually exploited children and youth while offering support to families.

 

 

 

Children of the Street Society (COS)

 

We are a non profit society made up of citizens of the community concerned with the growing numbers of children being coerced into and exploited within the sex trade.  Our main goal is to increase public awareness about the problem by providing education and prevention strategies for youth, their families, educators and service providers.  We also lobby government at all levels for changes in legislation that will help protect young people, support families and penalize criminals who exploit children.

 

Are you interested in becoming a member of Children of the Street Society?

 

 

 

 

     Children of the Street Society now has job opportunities for you!

 

 

Job Title:  Workshop Facilitator

(3 Positions Available)

 

Children of the Street Society aims to prevent the sexual exploitation of children and youth, through increasing education and awareness throughout the Province.  The Society is seeking 3 Youth Workshop Facilitators to work in a team environment and conduct school based prevention workshops for students in grades 6-12 over the 2008/2009 school year, on the prevention of sexual exploitation of children and youth and other interconnected issues such as drugs and alcohol, social barriers, etc.

 

Employment Environment:

·         Temporary Full time (up to 35 hours per week);

·         Travel throughout the Province is required on a regular basis;

·         Weekend and evening work may be required throughout the term;

·         Successful candidates will be required to deliver up to four, one-hour presentations daily.

 

Duties:

·         Undertake intensive training and education on the sexual exploitation of youth and youth issues;

·         Assist in the development of workshop skits, role-plays and facilitation;

·         Present interactive workshops to students, teachers, service providers and general public;

·         Perform skits and role-plays in the delivery of interactive workshops;

·         Facilitate and interact with audiences; motivate audiences to participate, prompt and answer questions;

·         Manage large groups of children, youth and adults during presentations;

·         Liaise with educators, community members and schools regarding workshop scheduling, content, resources, and the Society in general;

·         Provide information on local resources and programs;

·         Conduct public speaking engagements and media appearances on behalf of the Society as required;

·         Work in a fast paced team environment.

 

Qualifications:

·         High School Graduation;

·         Post Secondary Education in a related field is preferred;

·         Effective presentation and public speaking skills required;

·         Drama experience is an asset;

·         Experience working with children and youth;

·         Demonstrated interest in youth issues;

·         Knowledge of cultural diversity and social topics;

·         Excellent problem-solving skills;

·         Ability to work under pressure, independently, and with minimal supervision;

·         Ability to work as an effective and cooperative team member;

·         A valid Class Five BC driver's license.  Regular access to a vehicle would be an asset.

 

NOTE:   Successful candidates must pass a Criminal Record Check and sign an employment agreement.   This is an hourly paid position at $16.00 per hour, plus 4% holiday pay. 

 

Start Date: August 6, 2008

End Date:  June 15, 2009

 

Please email, fax or mail cover letter and resume to, no later than June 16, 2008.

 

 

Attention: Amy Schactman, Workshop & Facilitator Coordinator (Phone: 604-939-6055)

E-mail: aschactman@childrenofthestreet.com  Fax: 604-525-0024 

Mail: Children of the Street Society, 208-1130 Austin Avenue, Coquitlam, B.C., V3K 3P5

 

Current News

As a result of our endeavours, we are pleased to  inform you that  the age for sexual consent has now been increased from 14 to 16.    

 

 

Legal Age of Protection increased to 16!

 

May 2, 2008, Coquitlam – Diane Sowden took on a personal campaign in 1993 when her daughter was recruited at the age of 13 into the sex trade.  Turning to the police for help, Diane was shocked when she was told there was nothing anyone could do to help protect her daughter, when she became pregnant at the age of 14, by an older man, due to the law. 

 

Diane’s personal mission continued as she began speaking out publicly about the issue of sexual exploitation, and the laws that were not protecting our children and youth.  As a result of Diane’s speaking out, soon other parents came forward who disclosed their children had also been recruited, and manipulated into the sex trade. 

 

In 1995, a new Society was born, called Children of the Street Society.  Through Diane Sowden, Executive Director of the Society, the non-profit group now educates young people, parents, service providers, police, and the general public on the prevention of sexual exploitation.  Knowing that the average age of entry into the sex trade is 14 years, Sowden was overwhelmed when it became law that the legal age of protection has been increased to 16. 

 

“We at Children of the Street know that this is going to give social workers, police officers, and parents the ability to protect a young person that is 14 or 15 who may be targeted or abused by an adult predator.  Based on the calls we receive at our Society from service providers and families seeking help, we have found that the highest need of protection is 14 or 15 years.

 

Under the new age of protection, anyone under the age of 16 cannot legally consent to any form of sexual activity with an adult.  The new law contains a close-in-age exception of less than 5 years, which means that teens who are sexually active with their peers will not be breaking the law. 

 

“This law now brings Canada on par with other countries,” says Sowden.  “With the Olympics coming this will give us an opportunity to let the world know that we value our children and youth, and our laws will protect them from predators.”

 

Sowden would like to thank some key individuals who helped champion this cause over the years: former Reform MP Sharon Hayes, former Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh, the late MP Chuck Cadman, and MP James Moore.  Due to these individuals, tens of thousands of signatures have been presented in the House of Commons and provided Diane Sowden the opportunity to personally present in the House of Commons.

 

“None of this could have happened without the commitment of groups such as the Soroptimist groups, business people, and the general public who circulated and signed the petition.  Thank you to the media who kept this issue on the radar for so many years.”

 

 - 30 -

 

Media Contact:

Diane Sowden

604-777-7510

dsowden@telus.net

 

 

 

 

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.''

 

 

Department of Justice

www.justice.gc.ca

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·         Age of Protection Legislation

As part of its Speech from the Throne commitment to tackle crime and its pledge to protect Canadian families and communities against sexual predators, the Government has introduced “age of protection” legislation. The legislation proposes to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16 years old , in order to help stop adults from sexually exploiting vulnerable young people.

Understanding “Age of Protection”

The age of protection, or age of consent as it is also called, refers to the age at which the criminal law recognizes the legal capacity of a young person to consent to sexual activity. Below this age, all sexual activity with a young person, ranging from sexual touching to sexual intercourse, is prohibited. The current age of consent is 18 years old when the sexual activity involves exploitative activity. This applies to such cases as prostitution, pornography, or where there is a relationship of trust, authority, dependency or any other situation that is otherwise exploitative of a young person. Under the current law, the age of consent for non-exploitative sexual activity is 14 years old.

Recognizing the Threat of Adult Predators

Protection of children and youth against sexual exploitation remains a high priority for Canadians. These concerns have been amplified with the use of new technologies such as the Internet by adult predators to sexually exploit youth. By raising the age of protection, the Government is targeting those who sexually prey upon some of society's most vulnerable individuals.

Building in Reasonable Exceptions

The Government equally recognizes that Canadian youth, like all youth around the world, are sexually active. Close-in-age exceptions have been included in the legislation to protect against the criminalization of consensual teenage sex. This exception would apply to 14 and 15 year old youth who engage in non-exploitative sexual activity with a partner who is less than five years older.

Under the proposed reforms, an additional time-limited exception would be available for a 14 or 15 year old youth whose sexual partner is more than five years older but with whom, when the new age of protection comes into effect, the youth is already legally married or living in a common-law relationship, as defined in the Bill.

The proposed reforms maintain an existing close-in-age exception that exists for 12 or 13 year olds who engage in sexual activity with a peer who is less than 2 years older, provided the relationship is not exploitative. The legislation also maintains the existing age of protection of 18 years old for exploitative sexual activity.

Striking the Right Balance

The protection of children from sexual exploitation is a priority for Canadians and the Government. By introducing this legislation, the Government of Canada has underscored its commitment to get tough on adult sexual predators.

-30-

Department of Justice Canada
June 2006

Date Modified: 2008-04-14


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




Children of the Street Society
208-1130 Austin Ave. Coquitlam, B.C. V3K 3P5
Phone: 604-777-7510 Toll free: 1-877-551-6611
Fax: 604-525-0024 Email: childrenofthestreet@telus.net
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