Teen lost to the streets....

As my readers know, I pretty well stick to the topics of my missing daughter, JESSIE FOSTER (human trafficking victim), HUMAN TRAFFICKING and people connected to Jessie's case - but this story upset me a lot because she is a Human Trafficking victim-in-waiting...I mean what else do people who traffick in humans need besides a 'teen lost to the streets'.

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Teen lost to the streets

Mom: 'She can have sex with a 60-year-old man at 14'

By TAMARA CHERRY, SUN MEDIA

July 1, 2008

"We need some dead kids."

-- Det. Wendy Leaver, on what it will take to fix the system

Kay wanted to burn the tiny shorts and sky-high stilettos her 16-year-old daughter unpacked after returning home last Christmas.

Soon after her arrival, Charlie was snorting cocaine in her bedroom and coming home late for her court-imposed curfew. So much for the law.

The morning of Jan. 6, after coming home late, she argued with her mom and left.

Kay got a call from Charlie's friend at an escort agency in a Kitchener house, saying Charlie was there the night before.

"I sat outside and I watched and I watched because that house was the only link I had to my daughter," Kay recalls.

The next month she got a text message from Charlie.

"I'm so sorry. I'm too far gone now. You need to forget about me. Get on with your life," it said. "It's a bad world out there, you don't want to be part of this, mom."

Kay doesn't understand why a habitual runaway who has long showcased the signs of destruction couldn't have been saved before this.

"Maybe I was naive," she says. "I didn't know that these laws weren't here to protect me. I didn't know my daughter could go live wherever she wants when she's 12, that she can have sex with a 60-year-old man at 14 if she wants to. Why is that allowed?"

March 6, Charlie met Kay for coffee.

She sat down and said, "It's all your f----in' fault." She was upset her mom had remarried. She wanted it to be just the two of them.

The teen stormed out; Kay called police.

Within minutes, Charlie was found with five ecstasy pills, seven blocks of crack cocaine and a boyfriend with a record a mile long.

Charlie was held in custody until April 21, during which she called her mother to confess she had a daughter of her own when she was 15 and that the father was taking care of her. She said she had the baby Dec. 18, 2006 -- exactly a year before she was found working at a Toronto strip joint.

To this day, Kay doesn't know if the story is true, false or something in between.

Charlie was released from custody with probation orders but no address to report to.

"Where do you think she's going to go? Right back to the johns," Kay says. "She's dead before she walks out of the courtroom door."

That week, a 60-year-old man paid her $200 for a blow job.

The last time Kay saw her daughter was May 2. She told Charlie she didn't want her at home if she was going to snort cocaine a room away from her 4-year-old son. But she couldn't leave her baby on the street.

"My hands are tied," she told her daughter. "I can't force you into treatment. I can't force you to get medical help. I can't force you to do anything."

"I'm tired of watching you kill yourself," she said. "You've got to choose."

Charlie asked for a ride to the bus stop. She got out, turned around, said, "Thanks for f---in' nothing," slammed the door and left.

So it's back to the hunt. Back to posting pictures around the city. And back to calling the phone numbers written on the four back-to-back pages of paper before her -- numbers Kay's husband got from Charlie's cell phone when she was in custody once.

It's back to heart-breaking notes left by her daughter on Facebook. Like this one:

"Happy Mothers (sic) Day to all the mothers out there who are having a rough life ... time will heal all ... I love you and happy mothers (sic) day."

Kay's husband recently found Charlie on MySpace, where she goes by another name, says she is 19 and born in Kingston, but lives in Toronto. False, false, false, maybe true. Pictures are posted of her in underwear or skimpy lingerie.

"I don't care how old she is; she's my kid," Kay says. "I'll be damned if I'm burying my kid."

She laments the fact that closure may not come in anything but a body bag.

"I don't have an end. And when I close my eyes and see what's happening to her, it's horrible."

- - -

Officers in the Special Victims Section of the Toronto Police Sex Crimes Unit can't help but point out that many of Robert Pickton's butchered hookers likely started on the streets as young teens.

And yet the question remains: How do you control a teen who can't be called a criminal, even though she may be killing herself?

The Child and Family Services Act only goes so far, leaving much of the decision-making power to the child. So even if parents do care enough to fight for their children, they must fight with their children -- because there are few others with power to help.

"People look at us and gasp, 'What do you mean you can't do anything?' " Det. Wendy Leaver says. "If you can catch that kid at 13 and 14, maybe they won't have a life on the street at 16, 17 and 18 and be crack-addicted. But there's nothing; there's just a big, big gap."

They can't be thrown into jail; the system won't allow it. They can't be forced into a mental hospital unless they're threatening suicide or harm against others. And they can't be locked up for counselling if they don't want to be.

The cracks remain because, these cops say, this is the sex industry. Maybe no one realizes the problem is there; maybe no one cares.

"A missing child who is taken from their home or just disappears off the street is a major interest," Leaver says. "A missing child who is working as a sex worker or working the street doesn't seem to have that reaction."

Unable to fathom legislation that could save a teen before she's too far gone, these cops say the solution must come as a collaborative effort: Cops, judges, children's aid societies and parents working together, not separately, to save one child.

What will it take to make this happen?

"We need some dead kids. That's what we need. That's what works in this country," Leaver says.

"A judge's dead kid," Det.-Const. Leanne Marchen adds.

Until that happens -- and it very well could happen soon -- Det.-Const. Eduardo Dizon has this advice for parents like Kay:

"Maintain the lines of communication, as frustrating, disappointing, disturbing as it all is," he says.

"Just be there in every way, shape or form, because hopefully one day she will call and say, 'I want help.' "