Children of the Street Society (COTS) is a provinicial society and federal chairty, concerned with the growing number of children coerced into and exploited within the sex trade in British Columbia.  COTS's mission is to take a proactive approach through public awareness, education, and prevention based workshops to decrease the number of sexually exploited children and youth, while also offering support to families.  

COTS was founded in 1995 when Executive Director Diane Sowden lost her 13-year old daughter to the sex trade.  recognizing that this brutal occurance can happen to any child in our community, COTS implemented a series of prevention workshops aimed at parents, teachers, caregivers, service providers, police, government, community partners, and most of all our children and youth.

Achievements to date include:

• helping to increase the Legal Age of Protection to 1. 
• conducting more than 500 workshops (07/08) for more than 25,000 participants throughout BC
• decreasing the number of children joining the sex trade
• supporting youth wishing to exit the sex trade
• conencting children who have been approached to work in the sex trade with the appropriate authorities