The Other McCain

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Teenage Girls on Trial in Canada for Running Prostitution Ring

Posted on | April 14, 2013 | 11 Comments

You think kids are bad in America? In Ottawa, three teenage girls are accused of running a prostitution ring that victimized nine other girls, some as young as 13:

The three Ottawa girls, two who were 15 and one who was 16 when they were arrested, have pleaded not guilty to a total of 74 charges that include:

Human trafficking.
Abduction.
Procuring for prostitution.
Forcible confinement.
Robbery.
Sexual assault.
Assault.
Uttering threats.
Printing and publishing child pornography.

It took about 20 minutes to read the charges on the trial’s first day.

How bad was it? Here are just a few paragraphs from a news article in the Ottawa Citizen:

The two accused 15-year-olds also provided alcohol and marijuana to a 14- and 15-year-old. The 14-year-old remembered being passed out in a bathtub and was photographed naked; the 15-year-old was taken to a basement where her clothes were ripped off and she was photographed nude and in her underwear, Lalande alleged.
The 15-year-old victim was also beaten so badly that her injuries were still visible in police photographs weeks later.
“Ain’t no problem like a hoe problem,” tweeted one of the 15-year-old accused that night. “I’ve got hoe problemssss.”
In earlier Tweets, the same 15-year-old accused claimed she was the “female bill gates.”
“I’m getting to tha money, n tha money getting to me,” she boasted. . . .
Ottawa police Det. Carolyn Botting testified police found clothes, a resumé and other belongings from one of the complainants in the bedroom of one of the 15-year-old accused.
The purple walls were covered with messages written in marker, including “sex is like chocolate” and “money over everything $.”

From the feminist blog Jezebel:

The accused allegedly used social media to lure their victims to an apartment in  a social housing complex, according to evidence obtained from the girls’ phones  and computers. Once the victims arrived, they would strip them, steal their  belongings, and then photograph them, beating them if they didn’t comply. The  accused would then force them, through threats or physical coercion, to meet  with johns. At least two of the victims were raped by johns . . .

Samantha Escobar at The Gloss notes that “the teen pimps’ identities were an ‘open secret,’ meaning hundreds of other teens knew  about the violence and assaults.” Escobar is amazed that these Canadian girls didn’t seem to know right from wrong, as if we didn’t have any problem like that in America, and not just with teenage girls.

 

Comments

11 Responses to “Teenage Girls on Trial in Canada for Running Prostitution Ring”

  1. librarygryffon
    April 14th, 2013 @ 7:45 pm

    “Escobar is amazed that these Canadian girls didn’t seem to know right from wrong, as if we didn’t have any problem like that in America, and not just with teenage girls.”

    It actually makes me think a bit of the whole Steubenville case, where none of the town’s teens seem to have ever even had an adult in their life tell them no, never mind actually teach them what it takes to become a worthwhile human being.

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 14th, 2013 @ 7:47 pm

    They are just young feminists entrepreneurs taking advantage of the new Obama economy.

    You are obviously patriarchal, misogynist, and judgmental! H8er!

  3. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 14th, 2013 @ 7:49 pm

    I am not a professional journalist…but this is news worthy, isn’t it?

  4. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 14th, 2013 @ 7:50 pm

    Reminds me of that movie River’s Edge.

  5. xyzwriter
    April 14th, 2013 @ 7:50 pm

    @smitty_one_each That’s the kind of world we are becoming

  6. John Bradley
    April 14th, 2013 @ 9:05 pm

    Now now RSM, you’re just being an old conservative fuddy-duddy. How do you ever expect the GOP to make in-roads with the highly-coveted “teenage prostitute” demographic with a harsh, judgemental attitude like that? It’s like you don’t want the treacherous bastards to ever win another national election. Most unpragmatic!

  7. 1389AD
    April 14th, 2013 @ 9:56 pm

    I don’t think the “Lolita” picture you used is all that accurate. We’re looking at tweets and graffiti in “Ebonics” here.

  8. M. Thompson
    April 14th, 2013 @ 11:19 pm

    Strictly speaking, they weren’t pimps, they were procuresses, to split hairs.

    FWIW, this sort of stuff doesn’t surprise me that it happens, it just gets me to cry on the inside.

  9. Adjoran
    April 14th, 2013 @ 11:52 pm

    I’m sure Marcotte is concerned that at no time did these pimp-girls ever force their young victims to have abortions, and suspects them of being closeted woman-hating Republican Christo-fascists posing as teenaged girl whore-mongers just to promote their war on women by withholding forced abortions from the girls.

    Or something equally as incoherent.

  10. BANE
    April 15th, 2013 @ 3:55 am

    Go on girls. Make yo’ paper boo boo. I wish they was operating in my zip code.

  11. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 15th, 2013 @ 12:35 pm