LOST LITTLE GIRL

City 15-Year-Old Has Given Her Life To Drugs And The Sex Trade That
Pays For Her Habit

Headlines this week summed up the sad tale of a man 'Destined to die'
and outlined the drug-fuelled path taken by Calgary's latest homicide
victim, which ultimately led to his death. Today, Sarah Kennedy talks
to 15-year-old Nicki (not her real name) who fears she's headed down
the same path.

Nicki should be enjoying her first year of high school, playing sports
and maybe going out on her first date.

Instead, her first sexual experience happened inside a seedy downtown
motel, with a man whose name she'll never know.

It was an act of desperation bred of an out-of-control addiction to
crack and a $20,000 drug debt hanging over her head.

In the brief, disgusting moment it lasted, she knew she'd never be the
same.

"I cried the first time. It wasn't for crack that time, it was for
money but I never saw any of it," she said.

"But I just kept doing crack and I didn't care anymore."

Some days, she has sex with up to 20 men to cover her debts and
addiction.

She's lost 30 lb. in less than two months, her teeth are rotting and
she's always sick.

"I haven't got no diseases though," she said.

"I get checked out."

On the days she's clean and not numbed by drugs and alcohol, she said
she's scared of dying and wonders how this became her life.

Nicki knows she's not like the other girls she meets on the street.
With those girls, she said, it's easy to understand why they're
addicted to crack.

Take her 13-year-old friend, who she met in P-CHIP, (Protection of
Children in Prostitution) -- a provincial initiative that provides
programs and services to child prostitutes -- whose parents both do
drugs and live on the streets.

But that's never been the case with Nicki.

She comes from a loving family -- two parents with good jobs and a
little sister.

In fact, she can't even talk about them without crying in
shame.

"I have a perfect family," she said, tears spilling down her
cheeks.

"Everytime I don't call, my mom cries.

"She told me she had a dream the other day that the police came to her
door and told her I was dead.

"I don't want that ... I don't want to die.

"I want to stay at home with my family but I just can't ... I always
end up back on the street."

Nicki's battle with crack began with the experimentation typical of
most teens.

She was in junior high school when a fellow student asked her if she
had ever smoked marijuana.

"I lied and said yes, 'cause I wanted to fit in. When I did it, it
felt good."

Until a year ago, Nicki only ever smoked marijuana but she remembers
when that changed.

Two years ago, she learned her father -- who had been there for her
her entire life -- wasn't her biological dad.

She decided that same summer she would go out of province and visit
her real father for a couple of weeks and get to know him and her
younger half-sister.

"It was fun, we swam a lot," she remembers.

She returned home to her family, with a promise from her father that
he and her little sister would come to Calgary for a visit.

Several weeks later, her little sister vanished and has never been
seen since.

The news horrified her and it was around that time kids at school
started offering her heavier drugs, such as acid and ecstasy, and it
spiralled to the point where a stranger downtown, where she would go
to buy pot, asked her if she wanted to try something that would make
her feel great.

"I tried crack and I had no feelings at all," she said.

"All you think about is the drugs."

When life on the street gets too scary and she starts to miss her
parents and little sister, Nicki goes to her family home.

She can sometimes stay clean for a week but the need always wins out
and she ends up back in crack houses or the downtown corner known by
cops and users as the Crack Cul-de-Sac.

From there, where she'll end up is anyone's guess. Some nights are
spent on dirty, bare mattresses on the floors of crack houses.

Other times, she'll sleep in a motel with a pimp or john and in some
cases, such as two weeks ago when the temperatures plummeted, she
stays on the streets.

She said she can spend up to $2,000 a day on crack.

A hundred dollars only keeps her high for an hour, she said.
Sometimes, she has the money to pay for her addiction, other times she
has sex with dealers and pimps for crack.

She also gets regular visits from businessmen who work downtown,
looking for sex on their lunch hours.

"If I wasn't doing this, I'd get a job and be in school and get my
Grade 12 like my mom wants," she said.

"I want to go back to school ... I do ... but a lot of kids know
me.

"A lot of them are scared of me because I've hurt a lot of
people."

A thick purple scar is proof she's been hurt herself.

She said she was slashed in the face by another prostitute sent on
behalf of a pimp with a message that Nicki owed him money.

That was the last time she let anyone hurt her, she
said.

"I'm a fighter," she said.

"I always have a knife on me ... I've never used it but it's always
with me."

Violence has become a regular part of her life.

She was there when 38-year-old Preston Kyle Matthews, who she
described as a close friend, was shot to death on a downtown LRT
platform in November.

"We had heard rumours that day that this guy was getting out of jail
and looking to collect his drug debts," she said.

"He told me earlier that day he loved me.

"A lot of people I know are dead."

If things were different, Nicki said she'd like to go back to
school.

She starts to cry when she talks about what could be.

"I want to be like those guys on CSI ... I have the whole series ...
but I don't think it will ever happen," she said.