GRAPEVINE

By DAVID ELLIS

Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost reforms have provided an unusual twist on the old story about girls who leave home seeking fame, but wind up exploited in the big city. Eleven young Soviet women emigrated to Toronto in January, lured by the promise of high-priced modeling jobs. Instead they wound up working as nude table dancers at several strip clubs. The women, billed at one club as "Gorby's Girls," say they were kept as virtual prisoners in a locked apartment during the day. Eventually, a bar patron learned of the group's plight and called police. While the Soviet strippers face deportation, local citizens are offering financial help and even proposals of marriage. Immigration officials, who charged the club owners with hiring illegal workers, are investigating reports that many other Soviet women may have been imported to Canada through similar scams.

With reporting by Sidney Urquhart