Teen Predators

In case there are any in the general public wondering how perversely deranged the values of teen-age girls can become, there is the instance of a current court case working its way through the unbelievably tawdry and disgusting manipulations of a trio of girls living in Ottawa. Three young girls, ages 15 and 16, familiar with and part of the culture of social media and rap whose droning-staccato lyrics degrade and demean women as sex objects, along with a general disregard of the social contract and the celebration of street violence, set themselves up in business.

They would present themselves as friendly older girls on chat rooms, gain the interest and eventual trust of other young girls, eventually set up meetings, then set about manipulating and finally threatening their victims if they resisted the invitation to become an integral part of their business. The business consisted of contacting male clients through sites like Craigslist, assuring prospective clients that they could supply them with young woman skilled in the art of satisfying men's libidinous desires.

The vulnerable girls would be overwhelmed by the insistent vehemence and threats of the three dominating personalities that insisted they pose nude for photos, striking alluring and appealing poses, both without clothing and in specially provided clothing meant to be revealing and alluring. The girls would be slapped around if they resisted. They were slathered with make-up, given high heels and provocative clothing, and driven to places where they would meet up with men.

The unwilling girls were threatened, beaten, cajoled and convinced that they had little option but to co-operate. The victimized girls felt overwhelmed and fearful and ultimately compliant, allowing themselves to be driven to these assignations, and to provide oral sex, and often were raped. The latest individual to testify was a 52-year-old man to whom a 17-year-old girl had been delivered, caked in makeup and shoeless, as he described her. And whom he was assured was much older.

When he asked her to validate her age, she broke into tears. "I've never seen anybody cry like that. It was scary", he said. This meeting resulted from a Craigslist contact with a young women to whom he confided that he was lonely, not all that interested in sex per se, but in the company of a woman. For social relaxation, conversation. He was struggling under strict parole conditions preventing him from going out to bars or restaurants. "She explained that she was raped prior to arrival at my door", he testified about the young woman.

He comforted her, called for a taxi, paid the driver, instructing him to deliver the girl to her home. "I didn't want anything else to happen to her. She had been through enough", he told the court. And he also said that when his Craigslist contact returned around 4:30 to pick up the now-departed girl: "I asked them if they were running some kind of prostitution ring. They were calm, relaxed, smiling. Like, 'What are you talking about'?"

Two of the girls were present at trial, a third faces nine charges, is not in custody. The girls, now 16, 15 at the time of the described events, face numerous charges. One of the duo faces 33 charges while the other faces 29 charges, inclusive of human trafficking, assault and making child pornography. Earlier, the mother of a different victimized teen testified that her 16-year-old daughter had come home weeping, and with an injured nose.

"She said, 'I wasn't with friends. I was kidnapped'", the mother testified. When the mother made to call authorities the girl protested: "No, no, no! Don't call the police." She had been threatened that her throat would be slit if she alerted anyone with respect to what had happened to her. "(She was) more than upset. Distraught. Beside herself", the mother testified.