WINNIPEG — Ending the sexual exploitation of children was the focus of a special gathering at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.
International agency Beyond Borders organized the meeting to discuss ways to combat what it calls a growing problem.
One of the keynote speakers is a First Nations woman who goes by the name “Great White Owl Woman.”
She says members of her adopted family in rural Manitoba started to sexually abuse her when she was just five years old.
She now has two children in college and is a college graduate herself.
Child victims account for more than half the sexual assaults reported to police.
“Grandpa, uncles, church members, teachers, my mom’s boyfriends, and guests at parties abused me," the woman said.
"I was constant entertainment for anyone, because it was known I wouldn’t fight, I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t tell, and somehow it was okay.”
