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| Original News Release |
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| Original News Release |
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“Safe Care for British Columbia’s Children: A Discussion Paper” has been released as the basis of a consultation process about legislation and services to protect children from commercial sexual exploitation. The consultation will involve families, communities, service providers and the general public and asks three main questions:
· The age limit for the target population (under 19, under 18, or an even younger maximum age). · How to define the scope of commercial sexual exploitation of youth. · Criteria that would be used to detain a youth beyond five days.
Why Safe Care legislation?
· Safe Care legislation is being developed to protect commercially sexually exploited young people who unable or unwilling to access help through voluntary services. · Involuntary measures will only be used when available less intrusive services are not sufficient to protect the child. The proposed legislation would provide services to young people in order to provide protection and formulate a plan for their safe return to family where possible, and/or to voluntary services. · The proposed legislation would allow for the apprehension of these children by court order or, in cases of imminent danger, by police or the safe care director. In both cases, the child would appear before a judge within 24 hours for a hearing to review the detainment. · Under the proposed legislation, a young person could be detained by a court order for up to 30 days while the ministry works with the child, their family where possible, and community services to create a safety and transition plan for the child that will help to keep the child safe when they leave the safe care facility.
Consultation
· “Safe Care for British Columbia’s Children: A Discussion Paper” was written to form the basis for consultation on the proposed new legislation and services. Feedback from the Secure Care consultation was used in the development of this paper. · The discussion paper includes background on the issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth in B.C. and other provinces, outlines the reasons for reconsideration of the Secure Care Act and the resulting changes addressed through the proposed Safe Care Act. It also describes a delivery model for Safe Care services in British Columbia.
Specifics include the following: · A requirement for a court order to detain a child, except in cases of imminent danger. · A requirement that no other less intrusive measures available would be sufficient to protect the child. · Provision of short-term detainment, medical and psychological assessment and care and creation of a safety and transition plan for the child’s release to voluntary services and family where possible. · Detainment limited to a maximum of 30 days.
Feedback on the discussion paper will inform the drafting of the legislation as well as the design and delivery of Safe Care services.
Previous initiatives
· In 2000, the previous government passed the Secure Care Act. It focused on protecting children at high risk of serious harm from substance misuse/ addiction or commercial sexual exploitation. · The Secure Care Act caused concerns in the community due to its broad scope, potentially lengthy periods of detainment of up to 100 days, high administrative costs, and lack of consultation prior to its introduction. As a result, the Secure Care Act was never proclaimed. · Alberta is the only province that has implemented specific legislation aimed at protecting sexually exploited youth. In the first year that legislation was in place, there were 332 apprehensions involving 161 young people. In the past two years, a significant decline in the use of the legislation has been reported.
Consultation
· The discussion paper and an on-line response form are now available to the public through the ministry’s Safe Care website at http://www.mcf.gov.bc.ca/safe_care/. · Approximately 800 interested groups and individuals have been sent copies of the discussion paper and have been invited to provide their comments. The ministry is arranging approximately 15-20 meetings with stakeholder groups in all regions of the province between June and July 2004.
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