Why children in government care face a higher risk of sexual exploitation

Kyesha Boudreau, 28, shared her story with CBC in the hope that it can help other people with current or prior experience as children in government care. (Brian MacKay/CBC)Social SharingKyesha Boudreau spent part of her childhood shuffling through roughly 12 foster homes, leaving her with a painful sense that families had put her under a microscope and decided not to choose her.

“I feel like I got picked over,” she said in a recent interview at her home in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley.   

She firmly believes that pain set her up to be a target of sexual exploitation later as a teenager living in group homes. 

People who work with youth in government care have long understood these children are particularly vulnerable to human traffickers. 

Court decisions as recent as December 2025 describe men buying and selling sex with girls who lived in Nova Scotia group homes, some as young as 14. According to a senior Crown prosecutor who worked on some of the cases, sexual predators found victims by lurking near the homes or scoping them out on social media. Many survivors now face “devastating long-lasting impacts.” 

Boudreau, 28, said it's deeply upsetting a decade after her own experience that it continues to be a major issue in the child welfare system.

She believes children in group homes are the “easiest targets” for traffickers because when staff can't meet their emotional needs, youth turn to anyone offering “the slightest bit of love, affection, attention.”  

“All someone has to do that wants to pimp you out — I've seen it happen so many times and even in my own experience — they will come up to you, they'll offer you anything they know you want,” she said.

That’s why Boudreau thinks her longing to be chosen left her vulnerable to be picked for all the wrong reasons. 

“A kid in care, they're going to see that as the best part because when have you ever been chosen? You're in a group home. You're obviously not chosen,” she said. “That's the sad thing.” 

Human or sexual trafficking relies on coercion, meaning the trafficker uses threats or manipulation to force someone into providing sexual or other services.

Statistics Canada data from 2024 shows Nova Scotia had the highest rate of human trafficking of any province, at 4.5 police-reported incidents per 100,000 people.

Senior Crown attorney Katie Lovett, who has prosecuted more than a dozen human trafficking cases in Nova Scotia, said perpetrators look for targets lacking something in their everyday lives.

Senior Crown attorney Katie Lovett has prosecuted more than a dozen human trafficking cases in Nova Scotia. (Shaina Luck/CBC)Those needs might be food, shelter, alcohol or drugs — or emotional support, such as a trusted adult to lean on.

“They will use that need to build trust with that person and eventually manipulate and exploit them,” Lovett said. 

She’s known traffickers to hang around gas stations or convenience stores near group homes. That gives them a chance to offer to buy the target something like a pack of cigarettes, opening the door for further contact or gifts. This can continue for months, Lovett said. 

“Eventually they will stop and they will tell the person, I've bought you $500 worth of items in the past month, you need to pay me back,” she said. 

Traffickers also use social media to approach teens and build trust. 

By befriending a youth online, Lovett said, traffickers can check their friend list to identify others living in the same group home.

Statistics Canada data from 2024 shows Nova Scotia had the highest rate of human trafficking incidents of any province, at 4.5 police-reported incidents per 100,000 people. (CBC News)Location-sharing features on platforms like Snapchat create additional risks. If a youth has their location turned on, traffickers can track them on a map in real time.

Lovett said she’s also known of cases where teens have handed over access to their social media accounts. 

“It might not be a long time period [of access], but for enough time for them to go on and try to make connections that they can use later on,” she said.

Ashley Tiller wants to dispel the myth that human trafficking involves a stranger snatching a victim off the street and forcing them into a vehicle.

“That sensationalized version is not how it commonly occurs,” said Tiller, who manages several gender-based violence support programs at the YWCA Halifax. “It's a lot quieter. It's a lot more subtle.” 

The YWCA operates a peer support program and safe house for human trafficking survivors.

Ashley Tiller manages several gender-based violence support programs at the YWCA Halifax. (Shaina Luck/CBC)Trafficking can happen in the community where the victim lives, she said, and most cases involve women and girls who may take a long time to recognize the warning signs.

Tiller said that’s because the trafficker can often be a friend or romantic partner who excels at making the target feel loved and cared for.

“Maybe it's the two of them against the world together,” she said. 

Tiller said the relationship slowly starts to shift, perhaps with the trafficker pushing different sexual experiences until the target agrees. 

“Step by step, trying to push boundaries in a new way to make things that previously were outside of somebody's comfort zone on the table,” she said.

Some traffickers set up situations where they can meet youth in person. 

“They'll watch you for a few days. I literally had someone watch me and my friends on the bus,” Kyesha Boudreau remembers. 

“All of a sudden we kept seeing him pop up every day in front of our group home. We didn't know who he was.” 

According to people who have worked with survivors of human trafficking, perpetrators can often be a friend or romantic partner who is good at making the target feel loved and cared for. (CBC News)She said staff warned the girls that the man was dangerous.

“We didn't believe them,” Boudreau said. “We're like, oh, you're just trying to scare us.”

“He would literally invite us to his apartment to hang out. He'd give us weed, he'd give us liquor, and then he'd take the bus home with us to make sure we got home.”

She knew that some of her friends were sexually exploited by the man.

“They would come home and tell me, 'yeah, maybe I shouldn't have stayed,'” she said. 

“We would report it to the group home staff. They wouldn't do nothing about it because in their eyes, you did that to yourself. We told you about it and you still went and hung out with this person.”

Jill Barkhouse is the executive director of the child and family well-being division of Nova Scotia's Department of Opportunities and Social Development. (Shaina Luck/CBC)Jill Barkhouse, executive director of the child and family well-being division at Nova Scotia's Department of Opportunities and Social Development, said staff act on every report of sexual exploitation and trafficking. 

“We take those concerns seriously and we tend to those with actions,” she said, though she said out of respect for people’s privacy sometimes the actions aren’t shared or widely known. 

Barkhouse said the department is working on public awareness campaigns and training for social workers, and working with groups in the community that fight against sexual exploitation. 

She said as exploitation moves online, protecting children looks “very different than it did some time ago” and requires considerable skill and attention.

Tiller emphasized that recovery programs at the YWCA allow survivors to lead their own healing process.

In July, the government of Canada announced the YWCA Halifax would receive $245,000 to further its anti-human trafficking efforts. The money is earmarked for programs that help youth. (Jeorge Sadi/CBC)YWCA programs are voluntary, allowing people to self-refer to peer support or the safe house. 

Tiller knows trust is being built when people are ready to talk about their experience. 

“So when people start feeling a little bit more comfortable to open up and have those conversations, that's always a massive sign,” she said. 

For Boudreau, the time to have those conversations is now.

She said the danger didn’t pass when she aged out of the care system at 19. 

She got caught up in a relationship with a man that moved quickly, before taking a troubling turn. 

“I believed it because for so long I wasn't chosen,” she said.  

Kyesha Boudreau says she would like her story to support current and former youth in care. (Brian MacKay/CBC)Boudreau said she slowly began to feel she was being pushed to do things she didn't want to do. She even discovered intimate photos of herself had been posted online. 

It got to a point where she had to get out. 

With the help of friends, she found a new place to live and started to rebuild her self-respect. 

“It took a long time for me to love myself again,” she said.

Now, she wants to share her story to help others who grew up in provincial care. 

“I want to help people see that we're not leftovers,” she said. “We're not just someone you can just pick up and throw away when you don't want them anymore.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: They are among society's most vulnerable: children who experience traumatic instability and end up in government care. In this series called “Left Behind,” the CBC Atlantic investigative team explores the challenges and outcomes through the eyes of people who lived through this and those trying to help them.

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Shaina Luck is an investigative reporter with CBC Nova Scotia. She has worked with local and network programs including The National and The Fifth Estate. Email: shaina.luck@cbc.ca

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