'Every single hotel' along Hwy. 401 has sex work, human trafficking survivor says

This story is part of a Metroland-wide series on drugs, guns and human trafficking happening along the major highways that run through our communities. For more on this topic visit Highway Pirates - guns, drugs and human trafficking.

You're just gonna have to do this one thing, and I'll be there the whole time."

With those words from a friend," at age 15 Kaitlin Bick was introduced to sex work and trafficking.

Bick, who started using drugs at age 12, had run away from home and met the friend outside a movie theatre on Richmond Street in downtown Toronto. I was high, and we just started talking and she said, Oh, I have ecstasy. Do you want to hang out?'" Bick said. She was really pretty. I just felt like I wanted to be her. There was a part of me that was really insecure and I didn't feel like I belonged, but she made me feel better about myself."

The friend" was 17, worked in massage parlours and always had cash.

She casually lured Bick into sex work while the two were hanging out in Parkdale.

She said, I can help us,'" Bick recalled, adding the friend" assured her she would just have to do this one thing" and that she (the friend") would be there "the whole time."

The friend then called one of her johns, a cab driver, who took the two teens and another john to an Etobicoke motel.

I told her, I don't want to do this. You said you were going to stay with me.' And she goes, Don't worry. Just do it and I'll be there right after,'" said Bick.

The friend also took some of the money Bick received from the John.

Bick's life changed a couple of weeks later when she was sent to rehab or therapeutic boarding school" in the U.S. for three years. After graduating, life was relatively normal for a couple of years.

Then my mom passed away when I was 20, and from that point, everything started to go downhill," Bick said. Slowly, I started to drink alcohol again and then I started using drugs again."

By age 21, Bick was spending $1,000 a day on drugs. She hung out with nightclub people and met a woman who got her a job at a massage parlour.

I didn't have enough money to survive. I was a drug addict," Bick said. My circumstances were exploiting me; my addiction was terrifying."

Bick noted she worked on and off at massage parlours for three years. (She now considers the parlours a form of sex trafficking because the owners are profiting off of" sex workers.)

I kept trying to leave the business, but I'd always come back," she said. When you're making that amount of money, it's really hard to get out."

At 24, Bick met a drug dealer who would become her boyfriend and pimp.

He gave Bick her drug of choice for free, took her on drug dealing ride-alongs, showered her with compliments and introduced her to his family and friends.

Bick said she felt as though she had won the lottery.

He was 100 per cent the Romeo pimp," she said. He knew all I wanted was to be loved and for someone to pay attention to me, and that's what he did."

In January 2014, Bick's boyfriend invited her to join him and a friend on a fun" road trip to Calgary.

He said, You don't have to do anything you don't want to do,'" Bick recalled. He knows that I'm vulnerable and that I've done things for money that I'm ashamed of, so he made it very clear that I'm just going on a trip with him and he's going to take care of me. At this time, we were in that honeymoon stage, so everything is just coming for free ... and everything is really over the top."

But the trip didn't go as planned. We ended up getting arrested in Marathon, Ontario, because we had drugs in the car, and his friend took the charge," Bick said. Once we leave the (police) station, he (boyfriend) looks at me at me and says, You're gonna have to work for us now. He took the charge. You're gonna have to pay for the lawyer' ... He made me believe that everything was my fault."

The first stop in Calgary was to a mall to buy lingerie. The second was a hotel.

He (boyfriend) took my pictures, he posted my face, he posted my body, he wrote the blurb of the services I was going to provide, that I was available 24-7 and that I had pretty much no restrictions," Bick said. I was working all day and all night. I remember sometimes going to sleep, and he'd shake me and kick me and wake me up at seven o'clock in the morning and say, We missed the morning rush.'"

During her month-long stay in Calgary, Bick said she worked in a few different hotels to avoid detection and her boyfriend controlled her every move. He told me when to wake up, he told me what I had to eat, when I got to eat, he controlled how much (drugs) I used," she said, adding every penny" she made was turned over to him.

But at the time she didn't see herself as being trafficked. I thought I had a sh---y boyfriend, pardon my language, that made me do some things that I really didn't want to do," she said. My idea of human trafficking was the movie 'Taken' or things that happened on 'CSI' or in Europe or Asia, not here in Canada."

Bick's recovery began in early 2015, when she started attending weekly trauma therapy sessions. She's now been sober for five years and is using her lived experience to help other survivors of human trafficking.

Everything that happened didn't happen for nothing. I get to use it to install hope in others," she said.

Bick, now 31, said human trafficking is a huge" problem in the Toronto area.

You could drive along the 401, for instance, and every single hotel that you pass, (has) sex work and/or trafficking happening (inside)."

While john sweeps and other police enforcement may help, Bick stressed building up our young people" is the key to ending human trafficking.

Someone who struggles with their insecurities and the way they see themselves, their vulnerabilities, people prey on that," she said. (Pimps) also struggle with a lot of the vulnerabilities that the person being trafficked struggles with, so maybe when they were younger they were forced into a gang ... We have to build up everybody."

Bick, a Scarborough resident, said it's also critical to provide support to those convicted of human trafficking so they don't reoffend.

We have to find resources for everybody."

Bick stressed it's important for parents to pick up on the warning signs of sex trafficking, which include having a marked change in appearance, having hotel receipts or hotel paraphernalia (pens or pads of paper), using several texting apps, having lots of lingerie and having expensive fashion accessories.

It's inviting that conversation, asking those questions (and) as hard as it may be, being present and not judging."