Advocate calls for strategy to address sexual exploitation of youth

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This article was published 29/05/2025 (303 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Four out of 10 serious injuries reported to Manitoba’s youth advocate involve the sexual assault of a young person who is in the care of government services.

“Kids can’t keep waiting,” Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth Sherry Gott said after releasing a first-of-its-kind report on Thursday.

“Throwing money here and there every once in a while is not the solution. (Government officials) need to develop a strategy to address mental health and to address sexual exploitation.”

Gott’s office has published a 78-page review of serious incidents that are, by the province’s definition, life-threatening, require admission to a health-care facility or the result of sexual assault.

The advocate has done a deep-dive into 140 cases referred to her office from July 1, 2023 to Dec. 31, 2024.

The deep-dive is part of new investigative program to raise awareness about incidents, hold service-providers accountable, and inform government funding and programs.

Child and family service agencies, hospitals and the department of justice, among others, are required by legislation to refer incidents to her office.

In total, 233 serious injuries were referred for review during the inaugural 18-month reporting period.

To date, Gott has reviewed 140 of them — 94 per cent of which involve children involved in child and family services.

Her early findings show 91 per cent of individuals who sustained serious injuries were Indigenous — what she called “a terrible inequity” that reflects historical and ongoing injustices that are linked to colonialism.

Girls and young women accounted for 60 per cent of all cases during that 18-month period. The injured individual was between the ages of 15 and 17 in more than half of the reports.

The most common injury was sexual assault, followed by weapon-inflicted assault and suicide attempts, accounting for 41 per cent, 18 per cent and 14 per cent of respective cases.

The advocate called the initial data “the tip of the iceberg,” owing to underreporting that she hopes will improve in response to her report.

Ten per cent of the 140 serious injuries were caused by a physical assault by another person.

Overdoses and accidental incidents each represented six per cent of them. Three per cent were self-harm incidents. Severe neglect made up two per cent of cases.

“Serious injuries impacting young people are regrettably not new phenomena,” Gott wrote in her report, “Natawihisowin Oci Maskikiya (Healing with Medicines): Findings from the First 18-Months of the Serious Injury Reviews and Investigations Program.”

“However, the legislated responsibility to aggregate and disseminate findings related to these horrific incidents is.”

She told the Free Press her office wants to see “a responsible mechanism” put in place for children who are being seriously injured.

The report indicates many of the injured children had a range of challenges, such as substance abuse, school absenteeism and poor mental health.

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine said the report contains “important data” and thanked the advocate for her work.

“We take these issues very, very seriously… We’re engaging in a revisioning of Tracia’s Trust,” Fontaine told reporters on Thursday, noting it is the 20th anniversary of that provincial initiative to combat sexual exploitation.

The strategy was rolled out in 2002. It was renamed in memory of Tracia Owen, a teenager who was sexually exploited and died by suicide in 2005.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca