Slaves of the rings

News that police arrested an Indian woman and two girls at Dorval airport on Sunday may lead to the discovery of some unpleasant truths about immigrant life in Montreal. The woman, 36-year-old Lalibaten Mukeshbhai Patel, is charged with intending to use the two girls, aged 12 and 14, for the purposes of prostitution, as well as seven other charges violating Canada’s immigration laws. And while the sad fact of human trafficking is already well documented, importing girls for the explicit purpose of prostitution has, until now, been little known in Montreal.

“This is the first time I have heard of this,” says Sadeqa Siddiqui, coordinator of the South Asian Women’s Community Centre. “We know that there is trafficking of people here, but not for just prostitution. But I haven’t heard of this kind of thing in Montreal before. In Vancouver, prostitution among South Asian women is well known, but I have never heard of girls being brought here for it.”

Siddiqui, who works closely with recent South Asian immigrant and refugee women, believes that Patel’s case is only the tip of a larger and seedier iceberg. “Because things like prostitution and sweatshops are not out in the open—they’re hidden away—people don’t know about it unless there is a big investigation to bust these rings open,” she says. “One individual cannot bring two girls here to do prostitution on her own. There must be a bigger ring here.” :

—Patrick Lejtenyi