Toronto: High-Rise Brothels

TORONTO--The scent of cheap cologne and hairspray trails the 40-something man as he paces anxiously inside the front entrance of a Scarborough highrise apartment building.

Alternating between buzzing and phoning, his persistence is rewarded a few minutes later with a welcoming voice on the intercom. "Hi. It's apartment 1410," an Asian woman says.

The front door unlocks and the man, dressed in grey pants and a black leather jacket, hurries to join a group of children in an elevator at 3275 Sheppard Ave. E., near Warden Ave.

Like a steady parade of other male visitors to the building every day, this man is on his way upstairs to purchase sex at one of Toronto's growing number of highrise brothels.

This building is a symbol of the migration of prostitutes from public space to private — a city-wide movement that has tenants complaining and officials struggling for answers.

Police, politicians, landlords and prostitutes all say hundreds of brothels are finding homes in Toronto apartment buildings like 3275 Sheppard Ave. E., where the Toronto Star discovered five separate brothels operating out of units located next to families and seniors. At least some of the brothel migration into private apartment buildings appears to be the result of the city's efforts last year to stamp out prostitution in licensed — but bogus — "holistic" centres. Today, there are 620 fewer women holding city licences to work as "holistic practitioners" — a 34 per cent drop from a year ago.

The move followed a Star investigation showing the city had inadvertently licensed more than 300 brothels and was spending more than $2.5 million a year to inspect and charge the operations.

The crackdown may have solved one problem for the city. But questions about Toronto's sex trade are mounting.

Many of the women selling sex in Toronto may be victims of human trafficking, police officials say.

Acting Staff Insp. Mike Hamel of Toronto Police's sex crimes unit says many of the estimated 2,000 people trafficked into Canada each year end up working in the sex trade in Canada's largest cities, including Toronto.

"There's more of a problem than just prostitution here. The issue is, where are these people coming from, who brings them in and what's the background?" says Hamel, whose department recently established a special victims unit to offer assistance to sex trade workers and to prosecute those who exploit them, including human traffickers.

Read the full article in TheStar.com