OTTAWA -- Canada's efforts to help stamp out sex slavery and human trafficking will flop without more financial muscle and stronger immigration policies, critics say. Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, calling the trade a "scourge on humanity," unveiled a 10-point plan yesterday to hunt down and punish those who prey on vulnerable and poor young women and girls.

He announced a new RCMP unit to investigate cases at home and abroad and a Criminal Code review to establish a new offence for human traffickers.

[. . . No] new funding was announced [. . . .]

Conservative MP Betty Hinton embraced any move to tackle sex slavery, but suggested Cotler's plan will amount to "pre-election gobbledygook" if it's not backed up with cold cash.

[. . . .]"The RCMP in Calgary, for example, have done their best, but they are very frustrated like other detachments across the country when they find something happening and they don't have the resources to follow through on it."

Lax immigration policies, including one that allows women to enter Canada as "exotic dancers," must be tightened [. . . .].

A report last year labelled Canada as a "destination" for people trafficked into prostitution and forced labor, with victims coming primarily from China, Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, Russia, Korea and Eastern Europe.

MONTREAL - She is barely 17 and the story she recounted in court yesterday about selling sex to Quebec City radio host Robert Gillet was revolting. [. . . . ]

She spoke haltingly and required frequent prompting by Crown prosecutor Genevieve Lacroix. But there was more than enough scandalous detail to fuel what has been the burning story in the capital since police announced the dismantling of a teenaged prostitution ring in December, 2002.

[. . . . ] What is not in question is that the teenaged witness, who cannot be identified because she is a minor, has led a troubled life. In 2001, at age 14, she ran away from her Quebec City home to Montreal, where she said she earned as much as $5,000 a week, working as a prostitute and performing live sex shows on the Internet.

At times during her testimony, she seemed traumatized, crying often and at one point early on asking Ms. Lacroix whether her father had left the packed courtroom.

But at other times she was matter-of-fact about her prostitution. "I used the money to spoil myself," she testified, saying she bought clothing, food and sometimes drugs such as cocaine and marijuana, with her earnings. [. . . . ]