The Executive Director of EGADZ, the downtown youth centre, expects the newly relaunched “I Am Not 4 Sale” app will be a game changer for connecting with and supporting sexually exploited youth. Don Meikle says when he began street outreach in 1993, there were children as young as seven selling their bodies. Since then, a few more programs and services have been added, but Miekle says there are still vulnerable children being sexually exploited. Kids are now in the sex trade in Saskatoon as young as 14.

He says, “We have to continually work together as a community, with the police and with social services and with health, to ensure we provide those services for them because they keep dying.” With the I Am Not 4 Sale app, youth can discretely and anonymously have immediate emergency services sent to their location. They can also connect with EGADZ counsellors and through a map available on the app, they can see where the EGADZ Street Outreach vans are.

Miekle says the app and website were redeveloped with close to $50,000 in funding from the Ministry of Social Services and with input from youth, based on their lived experiences with sexual exploitation. He notes that it is easy to use, and can be used for immediate help needed, or if someone just needs to chat, and, without giving out identities, it gives descriptions of dangerous offenders and their vehicles who may be in the area.