Warning: This story contains graphic details that may be distressing to some readers.
Two men have now been sentenced for their roles in the sex trafficking of a 15-year-old Surrey girl where she was made to sleep with up to 10 men a day.
On May 3, Vancouver Provincial Court Judge Donna Senniw sentenced Elkan Vyizigiro, 26, also known as "Lavish” or “LK,” to six years and eight months in prison after he pleaded guilty to human trafficking in a person under 18. He had also been charged with trafficking in a person under 18 for a material benefit.
In December, Vyizigiro’s co-accused, Meaz Nour-Eldin, was also sentenced on the same charge involving the Indigenous girl.
In passing sentence, Senniw read from the teen’s victim impact statement to the court.
“Imagine being raped by 10 pedophiles every day,” said the teen, whose identity is protected by a publication ban. “I blamed myself for a very long time even though I was the victim.”
She said her experiences had exposed her to the evil and corruption of the world.
Nour-Eldin was sentenced to six years. With credit for time served, he had one year and 181 days left to serve as of his Dec. 21, 2023 sentencing by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick.
With credit for time served, Vyizigiro has one year and 41 days left to serve.
Both must also be on the sex offender registry for 20 years.
Nour-Eldin’s sentence also included a conviction for drug trafficking.
Senniw heard the teen was taken to a party by a male friend where she met Vyizigiro in 2018. Fitzpatrick said Nour-Eldin was also there.
She was soon lured into criminal activity as a decoy, offering sexual services as Vyizigiro and his associates engaged in robbing sex workers’ Johns.
By late December 2018, Vyizigiro was suggesting she should be a sex worker, and that she could have money, nice clothes and travel.
She said there were some sex acts she would not do and insisted on a condom; however, Vyizigiro advertised her online under the names Christina or Melanie and said she would do the things she had said no to.
She was told she would be given money and that other earnings would be put in a savings account. The court heard she worked for $240 an hour out of hotels and Airbnbs.
She was given a phone with an app Vyizigiro could monitor.
At one point, Vyizigiro paid $60 a night for her to stay in a crack house where other pimps tried to recruit her. She was left to sleep on a dirty mattress as people used drugs around her.
“She had one day off in a 30-day period,” Crown prosecutor Collen Smith told Senniw.
“She was told she was their million-dollar bitch,” Smith said.
The teen was also slapped around, given booze and drugs, called names and made to sleep with Vyizigiro’s friends.
The same facts are in Fitzpatrick’s sentencing of Nour-Eldin.
It was when they tried to take her to Calgary and Edmonton that the car they were in was pulled over for speeding and police apprehended the girl. She was handed over to Alberta family services but soon ran away.
Police in Vancouver and Edmonton were alerted, Senniw heard.
An Edmonton officer began watching the dating website the men had used for ads for Christina or Melanie. He soon found her and set up a date. She arrived in a car with three males. She was again apprehended and the men detained.
She was returned to her family in B.C. but soon ran away again and was in touch with Vyizigiro.
This time, one John convinced her to stop doing sex work and she called police. Since that time, the teen has succeeded in her education but retains the scars of the crimes.
“When she said, 'I’m a survivor,' she very much is,” Smith said of the teen’s victim impact statement.
