WUNRN
Part 2 of this WUNRN release gives
response of Canada Parliament MP Joy Smith.
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CANADA-BRITISH COLUMBIA - ADULT
ENTERTAINMENT LOBBY GROUP WANTS TO RECRUIT STRIPPERS AT VANCOUVER HIGH SCHOOLS
By
Jeff Green, The Province -
If the Vancouver School Board won’t let the adult entertainment industry recruit strippers from within its high schools, industry reps say they’ll stand out on the street and hand out flyers.
“As far as recruiting 18-year-olds, that’s a market that has been untouched,” said Tim Lambrinos, executive director of the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada (AEAC).
In early June, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced the government won’t be giving out temporary work visas for foreign strippers.
“Canadians have told us they want us to put a stop to foreign workers entering Canada to work in businesses where there are reasonable grounds to suspect a risk of sexual exploitation,” wrote Alexis Pavlich, spokesperson for the ministry, in an email. “It is disgraceful that Tim Lambrinos would now intentionally target underage Canadian high school youth.”
“We’re reacting to the government ... They’re saying we’re going to strip you of your workforce,” said Lambrinos. “The government is saying, indirectly, you need to get more aggressive and more proactive at recruiting locally.
“We’re not going to take it lying down.”
A Vancouver school board trustee said there is no way any recruiting efforts will be allowed to happen at public schools.
“We would never allow any kind of publication of that sort anywhere near our school,” said Mike Lombardi, a trustee and vice-chair of the Vancouver School Board.
Lambrinos confirmed a draft of the recruiting package read: “If you are visually appealing and comfortable with your naked body and are comfortable about taking all your clothes off, you can be working right now as an exotic dancer and earn your tuition fees for university or college.”
Reacting to the draft, Lombardi said, “The bottom line is the position of the Vancouver School Board would be very swift and very firm and it would totally ensure that none of that kind of garbage reached our schools.”
Lambrinos’ association represents a total of 38,000 strippers across the country, 25 to 30 per cent of whom are currently students. About 800 of those strippers are in Canada under temporary visas that are up for renewal each year.
The reason the AEAC has targeted students is because it’s an “untouched” market whose numbers are on the rise, doubling in the last three years.
“There are already students that are becoming doctors, accountants and lawyers that are earning their tuition,” Lambrinos said.
Local strip clubs, including Main Street’s No. 5 Orange and Vancouver’s most famous club, The Penthouse, both said they don’t have strippers on temporary visas and won’t be affected by Minister Kenney’s move.
“We just don’t simply hire foreign workers,” said Danny Filippone, owner of The Penthouse.
“I can speak on behalf of the Penthouse and probably safely speak on behalf of the other local strip bars, it just doesn’t happen in Vancouver.”
Filippone said Vancouver’s strip clubs are run differently that those out east, with less of an emphasis on private or “VIP” dances.
Recruitment would start at educational institutions and perhaps move into malls if necessary, Lambrinos added.
“We’ll go to the mall, we’ll set up a kiosk,” Lambrinos said. “With a pole.”
The Vancouver School Board’s Lombardi called the plan a lobbying effort intended to scare the government.
“It’s a very, very poor tactic and strategy because what it does is bring into question their reputation,” Lombardi said.
Lambrinos added this is not the last card the adult entertainment association could play. He expects the group could use the courts to extend the dancers’ permits for another year. Past that, he suggested the AEAC would advertise to find people who could marry the foreign nationals, adding it would be possible because the women are already in the country.
The immigration ministry’s office has been contacted but has yet to issue a response to the AEAC announcement.
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CANADA - MP JOY SMITH RESPONDS TO SEX INDUSTRY'S THREAT OF RECRUITING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
By Joy Smith, Member of Parliament for Kildonan—St. Paul, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
The war against human traffickers that prey on our youth is now out in the open. Those profiting from the recruitment of Canadian women and girls into the sex trade have gone public through newspapers with their strategy of targeting Canadian high school students since they can no longer import young women from abroad to sexually exploit.
It is no surprise that the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada (AEAC) is upset with the recent initiatives to close a loophole of human trafficking in Canada. A source of income for strip club owners is being cut off and they are angry. Yet teachers and parents are also furious that the AEAC would target their youth for sexual exploitation.
Tim Lambrinos, executive director of the AEAC, claims he represents 38,000
strippers, 28 percent of whom are students. He portrays his role as helping
youth pay for university, but in reality he is the spokesperson for an industry
that makes millions through luring students into the adult sexual entertainment
industry.
Prostitution, strip clubs, and massage parlours all share a common thread—the owners are making big bucks through the sexual “services” of young victims.
Many of these victims are terrified to talk about the reality of their experiences, and are effectively muzzled by coaching, manipulation, and abuse. They are trained to take violence against them and not to bring police attention to the clubs.
Ask Natasha Falle, Timea Nagy, or the hundreds of other victims who have fallen prey to the modern-day slave trade. They will tell the real story.
Take Sharon, a young Canadian teenager, who described how her predator, her boyfriend, promised to take care of her and love her forever. After isolating her from her family and friends, he dramatically changed. He sold her on the sex market. Her life was a living hell until she was eventually too sick to profit her owner. Then she was discarded and left to die.
While Sharon’s pimp worked in secret, this week the key players in Canadian strip clubs and escort services publicly boasted of their strategy to target teenagers in high schools. With explicit literature written to minors about peeling off their clothes and promises of earning huge sums of money, these individuals brazenly recruit our youth.
I commend the Vancouver School Board for its swift refusal to entertain recruitment by strip clubs in its schools.
All around the globe, including right here in Canada, primarily women and girls are forced into sexual exploitation in the sex industry through coercion, threats, deception, or fraud. Police regularly find underage girls working in Canadian strip clubs. The average age of entry into prostitution in Canada is between 12 and 14 years of age.
It’s impossible to believe that these young girls and boys are making a
rational choice to sell their bodies to 20-40 men a night. Each victim can earn
their “owner” as much as $280,800 annually, as reported by the Criminal
Intelligence Service Canada.
Those who fall victim to human trafficking are not just the most vulnerable children, but are from every demographic.
Those who fall victim to human trafficking are not just the most vulnerable children, but are from every demographic.
Natasha Falle came from a respectable Calgary family and became a prostitute shortly before her 15th birthday. She was forced to recruit other victims through glamorizing prostitution and concealing the violent experiences—focusing on the promise of huge paydays and quick money.
Natasha eventually escaped from that brutal world and founded an organization (SexTrade101) to rescue the very girls she used to recruit.
Prostitution, strip clubs, and massage parlours all share a common thread—the owners are making big bucks through the sexual “services” of young victims.
Timea Nagy, the founder of “Walk With Me,” an organization dedicated to rehabilitating victims of human trafficking, first came to Canada from Eastern Europe on a sex trade temporary foreign worker visa.
When Nagy arrived in Canada, she was manipulated and coerced into stripping. During those three months as a stripper, she was repeatedly raped by her agents, forced to have sex with the club’s clients, and threatened with death.