Ex-prostitute sheds light on sex trade

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While working groups and government officials try to determine reasons why so many young children are on the streets of Saskatchewan, one former prostitute believes she has some answers.

Donna-Lynn, now 32, has been off the streets for three years. She spent half of her life working the streets of the major cities of Saskatchewan.

Donna-Lynn was first paid for sex when she was 12. She was on the streets, running from trouble at home. Being on the streets wasn't so bad, she said. The night of her first encounter with a child predator, she was "just wandering around, waiting for the morning. . . It wasn't safe for me to be at home."

During the night, what she described as "a nice fella" asked if she had some place to stay.

"He fed me, let me sleep in a spare bedroom and then he crawled in with me. . . He gave me some money after he was done."

Donna-Lynn's life leading up to her first attack reads like a text book on dysfunction.

Her mother was working the streets and was a drug and alcohol abuser. Donna-Lynn was taken away from home when she was seven and spent years in and out of foster homes. When she came back home, it didn't take long for things to get bad again. By the time she was 11 years old, she was on the streets. She was picked up several times by social services and spent a total of two years (on and off) in youth detention centres in Regina.

She started drinking when she was 11. Before she was 12, she was working the streets for a guy and his sister who told her she had to make money if she was going to stay with them.