Sex abuse systemic, group charges

[seemslikeadream]

By MARK HUME
Monday, May 23, 2005 Page S1

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"I think we have to have a real airing of what's going on here," Lee Lakeman, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres, said yesterday.

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Mr. Ramsay sexually assaulted young aboriginal girls in Prince George over a 10-year period. His victims, picked up on the streets of the small town in northern British Columbia and sometimes dropped off naked in the bush, were as young as 12.

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Ms. Lakeman said it is hard to believe that such a high-profile figure, preying on girls in a small town where the girls wait for tricks in an alley near the courthouse, could have gone undetected for so long. She wonders what the police knew and when they knew it.

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The RCMP has suspended two members pending the outcome of the current investigation. The two officers are no longer stationed in Prince George but both had served in the northern community at the time of the alleged offences.

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"It's just not possible that there aren't more people in positions of influence and power who were tolerating this situation. You know maybe they tolerated it because they think prostitution is okay. Maybe they tolerated it because they thought these were throw-away children because they were aboriginal children, or maybe they tolerated it because, I don't know what, but I can't imagine anything that makes it tolerable. We need to get to the roots of this problem," she said.

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"I'm horrified by the availability of young girls on the streets of Vancouver and by how little anonymity is left to them, even in a big city, once they've been targeted and identified as young prostitutes. But can you imagine what it's like in Prince George? You have these young girls who are condemned for life by being identified as prostitutes at 13 and 14."

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