CALGARY — Helping lure two minors into the prostitution business has landed a former Calgary woman an 18-month jail term.

In rejecting a call for a community-based sentence, provincial court Judge Barb Veldhuis said Friday a message had to be sent to those who might prey on such victims.

Veldhuis also ordered Ping Ping Wu to serve 18 months of probation once she's served her period of custody.

"Canadian society does not condone, nor accept the prostitution of 13- and 15-year-old girls to provide income for persons like Ms. Wu," Veldhuis said.

The judge noted Wu benefitted from the sexual favours the two girls provided to men at her Calgary home.

Wu, 37, earlier pleaded guilty to charges of keeping a bawdy house and aiding and abetting two men to procure the minors into prostitution at a trick pad in an Applewood home.

She was arrested in 2006.

Veldhuis said both a pre-sentence report and psychiatric assessment left her with concerns Wu would be able to abide by restrictions she would have to impose in the conditional sentence sought by defence counsel Austin Nguyen.

Chief among those, the judge said, was Wu's claim she had kicked the ecstasy habit which led her to become involved in procuring the girls.

"There are many areas of concern that I do not think Ms. Wu will be able to abide by," Veldhuis said.

She said the only evidence Wu was no longer doing drugs, as was indicated in the court-ordered reports, came from the offender herself.

"I would hope that she's accurate, but there's noting here to say she has addressed that addiction," Veldhuis said.

Crown prosecutor David Torske had sought a two-year term, but left it up to the judge whether that would be a conditional sentence or straight jail time.

Torske noted one aggravating factor was the two girls weren't involved in prostitution before turning tricks for Wu.

The girls, who can't be named, agreed to provide sexual favours for men in Wu's home after she told the older of the two she could make "$100 per guy, or $400 per day."

After her first "date" the 15-year-old told the younger girl about the arrangement and she agreed to take part.

Veldhuis said Wu, a mother-of-three who abandoned her sons in Vancouver to spend six years living the drug life in Calgary, should have known better.

"Surely Ms. Wu, as a mother, had to have some notion that these were underage girls," she said.

kevin.martin@sunmedia.ca