Most escort agencies fronts for prostitution, police say
By NANCY CARR
Monday, April 15, 2002 – Print Edition, Globe and Mail, Page A13
Although there's no law against advertising legitimate escort services in the Yellow Pages, police say 90 per cent of the ads are fronts for illegal prostitution agencies, where the clients' fingers do the walking rather than the women on the streets.
"On the face of it, escort services are legal enterprises unless they're offering more than just the escort," Toronto Police Staff Sergeant Gary Ellis said days after the breakup of a massive prostitution ring that operated mostly out of telephone directories.
But very few of the ads, generating up to $800,000 a year in advertising revenue for Yellow Pages publisher Bell ActiMedia, are publicizing the "lonely hearts clubs" of days gone by, Sgt. Ellis said.
The act of prostitution in Canada is not illegal, said Sgt. Ellis, but communicating in public for the purpose of prostitution is illegal for customers and prostitutes, as is living off the avails of prostitution.
Toronto police arrested 12 people on April 4 and charged them with living off the avails of prostitution. A "john with a conscience" alerted police to the ring after realizing he had had sex with a 16-year-old girl.
"What [escort-agency owners] try to do is work around these laws. They make the girls sign a waiver to not prostitute themselves, but it's thinly veiled," Sgt. Ellis said.
A former prostitute who has worked for several escort agencies says that is how her employers operated.
"They had a clause that I had to sign saying I could not charge extra for anything," said the 26-year-old, who worked as a prostitute between the ages of 21 and 24.
The woman, who would not give her name, now works with young women at the children's advocacy organization Save the Children Canada.
"But they knew if I showed up at a client's house and didn't provide sex, I'd have a very pissed-off john on my hands."
She also said her employers wouldn't let receptionists discuss sex over the phone with clients, but they could respond to code words from someone looking for more than a dinner companion. If a client requests a "friendly" escort, for instance, he's looking for someone who will kiss and cuddle. A request for an "open-minded" escort means he's looking for sex.
Catherine Hudon, spokeswoman for Bell ActiMedia, which publishes telephone directories mainly for Ontario and Quebec, said her company has strict standards on what is acceptable in advertisements.
But no move has been made at the company to ban escort-service ads, which take up more than 20 pages in the Toronto Yellow Pages, for example.
"If the company is legally registered to do business, then they're eligible to purchase ads in the Yellow Pages," Ms. Hudon said.
"If police suspect that any one of the thousands of companies that advertise in the Yellow Pages are operating illegally, the police would investigate. They're the experts in that field and we are co-operating fully with the police in their ongoing investigation in this case."
By NANCY CARR
Monday, April 15, 2002 – Print Edition, Globe and Mail, Page A13
Although there's no law against advertising legitimate escort services in the Yellow Pages, police say 90 per cent of the ads are fronts for illegal prostitution agencies, where the clients' fingers do the walking rather than the women on the streets.
"On the face of it, escort services are legal enterprises unless they're offering more than just the escort," Toronto Police Staff Sergeant Gary Ellis said days after the breakup of a massive prostitution ring that operated mostly out of telephone directories.
But very few of the ads, generating up to $800,000 a year in advertising revenue for Yellow Pages publisher Bell ActiMedia, are publicizing the "lonely hearts clubs" of days gone by, Sgt. Ellis said.
The act of prostitution in Canada is not illegal, said Sgt. Ellis, but communicating in public for the purpose of prostitution is illegal for customers and prostitutes, as is living off the avails of prostitution.
Toronto police arrested 12 people on April 4 and charged them with living off the avails of prostitution. A "john with a conscience" alerted police to the ring after realizing he had had sex with a 16-year-old girl.
"What [escort-agency owners] try to do is work around these laws. They make the girls sign a waiver to not prostitute themselves, but it's thinly veiled," Sgt. Ellis said.
A former prostitute who has worked for several escort agencies says that is how her employers operated.
"They had a clause that I had to sign saying I could not charge extra for anything," said the 26-year-old, who worked as a prostitute between the ages of 21 and 24.
The woman, who would not give her name, now works with young women at the children's advocacy organization Save the Children Canada.
"But they knew if I showed up at a client's house and didn't provide sex, I'd have a very pissed-off john on my hands."
She also said her employers wouldn't let receptionists discuss sex over the phone with clients, but they could respond to code words from someone looking for more than a dinner companion. If a client requests a "friendly" escort, for instance, he's looking for someone who will kiss and cuddle. A request for an "open-minded" escort means he's looking for sex.
Catherine Hudon, spokeswoman for Bell ActiMedia, which publishes telephone directories mainly for Ontario and Quebec, said her company has strict standards on what is acceptable in advertisements.
But no move has been made at the company to ban escort-service ads, which take up more than 20 pages in the Toronto Yellow Pages, for example.
"If the company is legally registered to do business, then they're eligible to purchase ads in the Yellow Pages," Ms. Hudon said.
"If police suspect that any one of the thousands of companies that advertise in the Yellow Pages are operating illegally, the police would investigate. They're the experts in that field and we are co-operating fully with the police in their ongoing investigation in this case."