Cultural Human Trafficking in Child-Sex Predation

(Peel Regional Police)

"It's very surprising when you have an adolescent performing this. Whether it is an adult or a child, it's appalling."

"Human trafficking is such a psychologically and physically violent offence. I think it's one of the most harmful offences that's being perpetrated because of the trauma that survivors endure, sometimes for months or years."

"There is a demand. There is an interest in the community for people wanting to have  sex with children. We are doing proactive initiatives to prevent that."

"It takes a lot of guts for victims to come forward. We want them to come forward. They don't necessarily have to come forward to police, but talking to social services and getting themselves out of the place they've found themselves."

"Traffickers are using social media, like Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, to communicate with young people to engage them and then offer opportunities to meet. And once they meet, they groom them."

"They provide them with gifts, they shower them with compliments, make them feel good about themselves and show them the good life."

"Then things change. The trafficker might say 'you owe me, and you have to do this to pay it back', or they might say, 'hey, can you do me this favour because I've been so good to you? And the favour might be to have sex with an older person for money."

"It is very much a psychological offence. They don't understand what they are getting themselves into. they think they're getting into a relationship with someone who loves them, but unfortunately, it is not true."

Det.-Sgt. Bob Hackenbrook, Peel Police Service Vice and Human Trafficking Unit 

 

This is happening. And what is  happening is not a reflection of what could be identified as 'Canadian values' in the sense that this type of social offence is not a common ingredient of the conventional Canadian psyche. It is also not a common occurrence within Canadian society. While predators exist everywhere that psychopaths can be found, the practise of stalking, grooming and trafficking young girls is a fairly recent phenomenon. And it is one that has a definite cultural background with racial dimensions. 

 

The men in northern England were sentenced to jail terms from 12 to 35 years after sexually abusing and raping two girls from the age of 13.  AP Photo

 

Grooming gangs are a common phenomenon in Britain, for example. Their prevalence and their tactics, their countless victims forced into the sex trade by unscrupulous monsters are acknowledged. Yet very little police action has taken place and the reason that this occurs is simple enough; an  unwillingness to confront the traffickers for fear of risk of being called out for racism. And that would be because this is a favoured tactic of 'racialized' people, for some of whom the practise has become business as usual.

 

Mohammed Shahzad, Mushtaq Ahmed and Kasir Bashir denied the offence charges brought against them in Britain   GMP/BBC

 

In the Toronto-area Peel Region, a 15-year-old boy has been accused of operating a child sex trafficking operation in and about the Toronto Metropolitan area, with girls as young as 11 years of age. Also arrested were three customers who Peel Regional Police have taken into custody to face sex charges. The police investigation revealed that girls aged 11 to 14 had been trafficked and sexually exploited. 

 

The suspects made use of coercion, manipulation and physical violence threats to influence and control the victims where violations of their human rights resulted in financial benefits to their exploiters. Peel Police found 32 victims under the age of 15, victimized through sex trafficking since 2022. Interest in child sexual abuse is a real and dangerous problem in Canadian communities, pointed out Det.-Sgt. Bob Hackenbrook, in charge of the Human Trafficking Unit. 

 

In an undercover operation last year dubbed project Juno,Peel police posted an advertisement offering sex with an underage teen that resulted in investigators facing a flood of eager calls amounting to an average of 100 such calls daily for several weeks. Police made 35 arrests on that occasion, on charges of communications for the purpose of having sex with a person under 18, by the time the operation was shut down. 

Peel has the highest percentage of racialized people in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). 

• 69% of people in Peel identify with a racialized group.
• By comparison, just 34% of Ontarians and 27% of Canadians overall identify with a racialized group.
• Since 2006, the racialized population in Peel increased 72%. 

"The demographics were astounding" said Officer Hackenbrook. From several Ontario cities and towns, businessmen, students, construction workers, retirees and a college teacher were among those responding. "It was very alarming. And a lot them were married, so their families got a rude awakening when they went to bail court the next day."  

The 15-year-old male offender in the current arrest, cannot be identified by law due to his age, despite that he is charged with two counts of trafficking in persons under age 18, three counts of procuring a person under age 18, two counts of receiving a benefit from human trafficking, two counts of material benefit from sexual services by a person under age 18, and three counts of exercise control, direction, or influence.

 

Three of his clients, Mohamad Omar Al-Saleh, 21, from Toronto, Mustafa Abdo 22, from Toronto, and Yousif Al-Gburi, 20 from Mississauga, each stand charged with sexual assault of a female under age 16, sexual interference, and obtaining sexual services of a person under the age of 18 for consideration. It is the minor who recruited/induced young girls into the sex trade, profiting from them, while the adult males were clients whose indecent contact violated the young girls' human rights. 

 

Mohamad Omar Al-Saleh, 21, from Toronto; Mustafa Abdo, 22, from Toronto; and Yousif Al-Gburi, 20, from Mississauga have all been arrested and charged in connection with a human trafficking investigation. (Peel Regional Police handouts)

 

Photographs of the three adults were released by police, but the Youth Criminal Justice Act forbids identifying a minor charged with a crime, leaving name and likeness out of the public eye. One of the young victims two years earlier had reached out for help, leading police to open an investigation. That there are additional victims seems likely to investigators who have reached out to anyone with information to contact police. 

 

Part of the modus operandi of these human smuggling operatives is to move their victims frequently to other locales, and to keep them from having any contact with friends and family. The situation of the growing prevalence of sexual predators and their abused victims has impelled Peel Police to host a provincial human trafficking symposium with the expectation that survivors, victim services providers, police, justice and social services officials, and politicians across Ontario will attend to discuss experiences and help to coordinate greater efforts to disrupt human trafficking.

 

There is in fact, a toll-free, around-the-clock Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-833-900-1010