Sex traffickers called 'master manipulators' in report

Strategies to end thetrafficking of women for the sex trade are the focus of a report released Tuesday by the Canadian Women's Foundation.

The report contains 34 recommendations on how to end the trafficking, saidDianeRedsky, project director of the human trafficking task force for thefoundation.

But it also has shocking information on how trafficking starts, she said, noting that themost common place traffickers meet their victims is at aschool.

The second most common connection is through thechild welfare system, and the third is throughcommunity organizations.

"The biggest risk factor to sex trafficking is just being a girl," Redsky said, notingthe recruitment age is typically around 13 and traffickers can get $280,000per year from each victim.

Redsky, who is based in Winnipeg, said in most cases the girls are deemeduseless to the traffickers once they are in theirmid-20sbecause men want them younger.

The movement is all about control. It's to keep her always in constant chaos so that she never knows where she is, so then she'll never know what services to access.DianeRedsky

When they get older, "we know that many of them either commit suicide or become missing and murdered," she said.

"Or they stay with their trafficker and they're part of helping the trafficker recruit other young girls."

Traffickers are "master manipulators" who zero in on girls who may have had something as trivial as an argument with a parent, Redsky said.

"They target in on the vulnerabilities of the young girls, so whether even it's even just a small fight with their parents they will blow that up," she said.

"[They'll tell the girls] that they [parents] don't love them anymore, that they should be with them, that they will give them a better life, and then they treat them like little adults. And we know thatteenagedgirls at that point are very vulnerable and they're naive as well because they're still developing."

Once the girls are taken in, the traffickersmove them block to block or city to cityevery 10 days so theynever know where they are.

"The movement is all about control. It's to keep her always in constant chaos so that she never knows where she is, so then she'll never know what services to access," Redsky said.