Constable Aaron Northrup says if you don’t think human trafficking is happening in North Bay, you’re fooling yourself.
The North Bay Police Constable was speaking to media at a conference Thursday where the Save the Girl Next Door Act was discussed. Northrup says North Bay Police were recently a part of a human trafficking case.
He says in April, local police found a 25 year old woman who had escaped a trafficking ring. He says the woman had left Alberta and was headed towards the East Coast, winding up in Halifax.
Northrup says she had a drug dependency and got mixed up with the wrong guys who got her involved in a sex trade. She was used in Halifax, worked hotels in the Toronto area and brought to Ottawa.
They had intended to bring her to the North Bay and Sudbury area as well but that’s when she managed to escape.
Northrup says she used an app on her cell phone to call her mother, who was able to GPS the girls’ location. She then called North Bay Police, who found the girl outside on a cold night with no shoes on.
Northrup says even though they weren’t the lead investigators they still treated this as a major case. He says the work felt frustrating because they had not dealt with many cases like this.
Northrup says they took care of the woman for about a week and she was moved to a safe haven out west.
Northrup says they worked in collaboration with other police forces such as Toronto, York Region and Halifax throughout the process. He says those police forces deal with these situations every day and gave the North Bay Police Service the proper advice on how to move forward.
He says the Save the Girl Next Door Act adds an extra layer of security and will help police forces and the victims if it gets passed.
