Winnipeg, Brandon police team up in crackdown on men buying sex; 82-year-old among arrested
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/07/2019 (2616 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
They’re between the ages of 22 and 82. Most live in Brandon, but others live in Winnipeg, Souris, Virden, Erickson and Shoal Lake.
What they had in common was they were all in Brandon Friday and Saturday and got caught trying to buy sex.
Winnipeg and Brandon police teamed up in Project Beckon, an effort to crack down on men looking for prostitutes and to highlight the fact that many of the young women providing those services are not doing it by choice.
The effort resulted in the arrest of 20 men, 14 of whom live in Brandon.
“We’re hoping to send that message, that might curb the demand side for this type of exploitation,” Winnipeg Police Service Sgt. Rick McDougall said Monday.
The Brandon Police Service leveraged funding from Manitoba Justice and expertise from the Winnipeg police counter-exploitation unit, Brandon police Insp. Mike Pelechaty said.
“By putting our numbers together… that’s how we got the results that we did,” added McDougall.
Of the 20 arrested, 15 had vehicles seized under the Highway Traffic Act. The other five used the internet in their attempts to hire women, something McDougall said is on the increase.
“A lot of the victims are transient in nature, they do move around from city to city,” said McDougall. “That’s part of the goal of this project, is to really highlight the fact that this exploitation can happen anywhere. It’s not restricted to large cities or to even urban centres, for that matter.”
Signs of exploitation include being escorted and/or watched, the women not speaking on their own behalf, limited knowledge of area or city they are in and signs of depression or fear.
Pelechaty said Brandon police will remain on the lookout for victims of sexual exploitation and have recently added two full-time counter-exploitation jobs: a youth intelligence officer to investigate youth exploitation, and a drug investigator who targets meth networks.
“There’s many aspects to this problem,” Pelechaty said. “I think (these arrests) will have a dramatic effect on those seeking sexual services within our city and, hopefully, the message here is it won’t be tolerated in our community.”
tvanderhart@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @tessavanderhart