Eighteen women, some as young as 15-years-old, were helped to get out of the sex trade as part of an investigation into human trafficking led by London police.
The results of Project Equinox were announced on Tuesday. What police are calling a “Human Trafficking Project” was launched on October 4, 2016 and ran until April 1, 2017. A group London police officers were devoted to the project and were assisted by police services in Strathroy-Caradoc, Stratford, and Woodstock.
According to police, Project Equinox focused on setting up so-called John stings, where men who answered escort ads were arrested and charged. It also focused on identifying suspects who were trafficking women for prostitution, and identifying victims of human trafficking and getting them away from those who were trafficking them.
Investigators were helped by The Salvation Army, Children’s Aid Society of London and Middlesex, Anova (formerly Women’s Community House), the Regional Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Treatment Centre at St. Joseph’s Health Care London, and the London Abused Women’s Centre. These agencies provided assistance to trafficking victims and information to police on where trafficking was occurring.
In all, 78 people were arrested, 129 Criminal Code charges were laid, and 35 Johns were charged.
Megan Walker, executive director of the London Abused Women's Centre, would like to see their names released.
"I think of this as a public safety issue and police routinely release the names of alleged offenders when it impacts public safety," says Walker. "I don't know how much more clear it is that prostitution is a public safety issue than seeing the number of women and girls that have been murdered across this country in prostitution and sex trafficking."
Walker says it's also a safety issue for the women who are married to or involved with men who are arrested trying to buy sex. She says those women have a right to know if they should be examined for sexually transmitted infections.
"You can only imagine how sickened this community would be if they knew that one of the 35 Johns was a daycare provider, or a school principal, or a pediatrician or whatever they might be," she says .
Walker says statistics LAWC has collected show women and girls aren't just trafficked into London, but also out of the city to be prostituted all along the 401 corridor. She says the traffickers often get to them at a young age.
"The youngest girl we've seen in our office was 12 and we know the average age of entry into prostitution is between the ages of 13 and 14 in Canada. That's similar to what we've seen in London," she says.
Walker says she hopes people who learn about the trafficking problem in both our region and across the country will stand up and ask what they can do to help. She says the victims of sex trafficking can be anyone's daughter.
"They can come from any kind of family, and because we live in a society where girls and women continue to be sexualized and treated as property, men continue to feel like they have to right to buy these girls," she says.