The Montreal tourism industry is taking major steps to try to curb activities related to sexual exploitation in the city. Several organizations have undertaken to offer training to their employees so that they take the right steps if they suspect suspicious activities.
On May 24, the Hotel Association of Greater Montreal (AHGM) organized a training session for the staff of some thirty hotels. Led by the Lighthouse of the Freedoms organization, this training detailed the issues related to sexual exploitation activities in order to help employees recognize the signs to watch out for and take action to help people in danger.
On June 6, it was Tourisme Montréal’s turn to offer such training for employees from the tourism sector, such as bars and restaurants. This time, the training was given by the organization Concertation des fights contre l’exploitation culturel (CLES).
This type of training has been around for years, but as the summer season dawns, the tourism industry has taken the bull by the horns. “Sexual exploitation, we talk a lot about it in June, because of the Grand Prix, but we have to fight it all year round. It is wrong to say that it is the fault of a particular event. It is a scourge of our society,” believes Jean-François Boudreault, CEO of the AHGM.
In 2016, the show Tested on humans, on TVA, presented a disturbing report on sexual exploitation. With a hidden camera and accompanied by a 14-year-old schoolgirl, a middle-aged man, played by comedian Dominique Lévesque, showed up at several hotels and motels to reserve a room for an hour. Even if by their words, the protagonists clearly implied that the young girl was a minor and that the man intended to have sexual relations with her, no employee made any comment or refused to rent a room.
More recently, a report byInvestigation reported the testimonies of women who reported having had sex for money with billionaire Robert Miller between 1994 and 2006. Several of them claimed to be minors at the time of the events. Some events would have happened in a hotel in downtown Montreal without the staff intervening.
Jean-François Boudreault believes that times have changed a lot. “We weren’t talking about sexual exploitation and consent like we talk about it today,” he says. ” Other times, other manners. Was that correct? No. We should have called him out, but there’s a lot of stuff in the ’90s that we shouldn’t have done. […] Hotels have nothing to gain by turning a blind eye. »
Training at Tourisme Montréal
For its part, Tourisme Montréal, which has 950 members, has also decided to offer training on sexual exploitation to industry employees. “For us, ‘sex tourism’ and ‘Montreal’ cannot coexist in the same sentence. This is not what we want for Montreal. We have our social responsibility at heart,” explains Aurélie De Blois, head of public relations at Tourisme Montréal.
Aéroports de Montréal is working on the deployment of an awareness campaign on human trafficking and sexual exploitation, mainly for airport staff, but indicates that it is too early to reveal the details.
The organization CLES, founded 18 years ago, has been offering training to counter sexual exploitation for years, but the recent agreement reached with Tourisme Montréal has enabled it to adapt its offer to staff in the tourism industry. What should an employee do if they suspect sexual exploitation activities and doubt that the possible victim is a minor?
“In training, before talking about what to do, we talked about what not to do. Not every employee should feel like a policeman or investigator. They are also not here to infringe on people’s privacy when it comes to hotels. There is a question of judgment which is very important,” explains Jennie-Laure Sully, community organizer at CLES.
A program in place
Every citizen has the obligation to help a person in danger. And if you believe that a minor is the victim of exploitation, you must report it to Youth Protection. But all is not always simple.
Co-founder and general manager of the Lighthouse of the Freedmen, Nathalie Khlat indicates that the Lueur program, developed to counter sexual exploitation, is based on the principle of “doing no harm” and is aimed at several areas, not only hotels, but also intercity transport and the taxi industry, among others. “We are really in the nuance,” she recalls. “We don’t want to go on a witch hunt and question the person directly [potentiellement victime], otherwise it will run away. Instead, engage in a non-threatening conversation and try to get the request to come directly from the person if they need help. »
There are a few signs to look out for in hotels, such as a young woman accompanied by a much older person who seems to constrain her, a lot of comings and goings in the room she’s in, and requests for sheets to be changed often, says Jennie-Laure Sully.
Good communication between staff members is therefore essential, as is the development of an intervention protocol in order to know in which context a report to the police is necessary, specifies Ms.me Sully.
Awareness of sexual exploitation has made progress, but there is still a long way to go, agrees Nathalie Khlat. “There’s a lot of trivialization that’s been done forever, so it’s something that doesn’t come back in a few weeks. It is a long process. »