December 8, 2008

(Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada) The sexual exploitation of young boys is one of Saskatchewan's dark secrets, suggests a new study into the province's male sex trade. "We like to talk about the sex trade in Cambodia and Argentina but not about what is happening in our own backyard," Sue Delanoy, executive director of Saskatoon's Communities for Children, told a news conference Monday. "It may be shocking for people to hear that there are young men who are working in Saskatchewan's sex trade,'' said Susan McIntyre, the report's author, who has conducted similar studies in Alberta and British Columbia. "Males enter the sexual-exploitation trade younger and also tend to stay and work longer in the trade than women. Males stay in the trade an average of nine years, while women tend to stay in the trade for three to four years." McIntyre noted that 75 per cent of those surveyed reported a history of being sexually abused prior to working in the sex trade and 80 per cent had been physically abused. The young men in the study were gay, heterosexual and bisexual.

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