The Devastating Impact of Human Trafficking of Native Women on Indian Reservations

SOURCE:
Testimony of Lisa Brunner, Program Specialist, National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center
Hearing on “Combating Human Trafficking: Federal, State, and Local Perspectives” before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Monday, September 23, 2013

Human Trafficking of Native women in the United States is not a new era of violence against Native women but rather the continuation of a lengthy historical one with the colonization of America through wars, forced removal from their homelands to reservations, boarding schools and forced urban relocation. Domestic human trafficking in the United States has a longstanding history.

Native women experience violent victimization at a higher rate than any other U.S. population. Congressional findings are that Native American and Alaska Native women are raped 34.1%, more than 1 in 3, will be raped in their lifetime, 64%, more than 6 in 10, will be physically assaulted. Native women are stalked more than twice the rate of other women. Native women are murdered at more than ten times the national average. Non-Indians commit 88% of violent crimes against Native women.

Given the above statistical data and the historical roots of violence against Native women, the level of human trafficking given the sparse data collected can only equate to the current epidemic levels we face within our tribal communities and Nations.

As an enrolled member of the White Earth Ojibwe Nation in Minnesota, I live, work and raise my children on my reservation. I have worked for over 15 years addressing domestic violence and sexual assault of Native women and have witnessed and heard countless stories of human trafficking occurring to the point that we have girls as young as 12 years olds who are victims. With the introduction of heroin, we now have an epidemic of the same age group and up of girls and women who are trafficked now have heroin needles in their arms. Native women and girls are sold for $20 worth of heroin.

We have mother’s call local county sheriffs departments reporting their daughters missing only to be told, “We have better things to do with our time or why don’t you be a mother and know where the hell your daughter is”. It is difficult given the jurisdictional complexity of the 566 federally recognized tribes in the country with non-Public Law 280, Public Law 280, 638 Contract, Land Claim Settlement States, Oklahoma’s checkerboard and Alaska Native villages. To add to the complexity, if
the perpetrator is non-Native, then the Tribes and Alaska Villages do not have criminal jurisdiction

With the recent wide-range impact of extractive industries such as oil fracking and pipelines is predatory economics at its worse for the Fort Berthold Nation in North Dakota and Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. With the fracking of the Bauken formation, comes “man camps’. The victim advocates responding to calls for service on Forth Berthold said there has been a doubling and tripling of numbers of sexual assaults, domestic violence and human trafficking incidents since 2008.

The multiple layers of issues that have come to the forefront are the lack of documentation of these man camps. Emergency services often can’t find their locations and since they are located in isolated and desolate areas, there often are no cell phone services available. There are two types of man camps: documented and undocumented. Undocumented camps are often 50-100 trailers that a rancher or farmer has set up on his land to rent out and make money. These undocumented camps present a special problem for emergency services and organizations since they don’t exist on a map or have addresses.

The other issue involved with the man camps in Forth Berthold is lack of monitoring and registration of sex offenders whether they are in the documented or undocumented man camps that pose a serious threat to the safety of women and children in the area.

In Montana, the Bauken Oil Boom has impacted the largest reservation, Fort Peck, and residing counties have experienced both a population and crime explosion.

The majority of employees from the oilrigs are not from Fort Peck Tribes or Roosevelt County or even from Montana. There have been documented increases in drug use and human trafficking, theft, alcohol related incidents and assaults within the last year. Law enforcement response, tribal DV/SA services, and medical response to these crimes have tripled in the last year.

Within Northeastern Montana there are currently three man camps with several more only seventy miles away in the neighboring state of North Dakota. Many
Tribal advocates have responded to victims that have been trafficked at the man camps often preying on young native women. Groups of men from the man camps use free access to drugs and alcohol as a method of coercion for young native women to “get in the car” and go party. This has resulted in 11 young native women ranging from the ages of 16-21 years of age reporting rape, gang rape and other sex acts; the majority of these victims are afraid to report due to fear and shame.

The Fort Peck Tribes SORNA program reports that one year ago there were forty-eight registered sex offenders and now there are over six hundred registered sex offenders. The struggle has been that non-native sex offenders to do not recognize the tribal jurisdiction and feel they “do not” have to report to the tribal SORNA program. However, the U.S. Marshals and other law enforcement agencies have assisted in gaining registration of known sex offenders on the tribal registry.

Another aspect of to the domestic human trafficking issues in the U.S. and Tribal Nations is the U.S. Adoption Industry. In an article in Indian Country Today titled: Trafficking of Native Children: The Seamy Underbelly of U.S. Adoption Industry brings to light the practice of selling Indian infants and children to the highest bidder which brings in revenue for lawyers from $25,000-$100,000 per child. In this article, it is stated that in 2012, 50 Native children were adopted out from North Dakota to South Carolina. These adoptions are done without the Tribes knowledge or consent or that of the biological fathers.

To really gain insight to domestic human trafficking in the U.S., one must take examine the many sectors in which this is facilitated, whether it be extractive industries, pimps, gangs, cartels, family members or lawyers working in an adoption industry. Many different avenues must be examined and taken into account to fully understand what leads to this epidemic of human trafficking that not only impacts Tribal Nations and Alaska Villages but all citizens of this country.

I am a Program Specialist with the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. Our role as an organization is to serve as a National Indian Resource Center that provides technical assistance/training, resource development, policy development, research activity and public awareness that also seeks to enhance Native American and Alaska Native tribes, Native Hawaiians, Tribal and Native Hawaiian organizations to respond to violence against Native women.

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Native American Youths: Combating Human Trafficking: Federal, State, and Local Perspectives

SOURCE:

Minnesota Indian Women’s
Resource Center
2300 15th Avenue South (612) 728-2000
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404 FAX (612) 728-2039
Contact: Suzanne Koepplinger, Executive Director
skoepplinger@miwrc.org or 612-728-2008
 
Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at hearing titled “Combating Human Trafficking: Federal, State, and Local Perspectives”.
September 23, 2013
 
Dear Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, and Committee Members:
 
On behalf of the women and children we serve at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center in Minneapolis, I thank you for this opportunity to bring to your attention a grave and egregious human rights violation being perpetrated against vulnerable Native Americans in our country. Sex trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children is of growing concern in our community. In 2009, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center published the first research on the scope of sex trafficking of any demographic group. Our Shattered Hearts: the commercial sexual exploitation of American Indian women and children in Minnesota report found highly disturbing indicators that American Indian females were being targeted by sex traffickers for commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). For example, of women and girls screening into three direct service programs during the study, 40 % of incoming clients reported involvement in some type of commercial sexual exploitation and 27 % reported activities defined as sex trafficking under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Our current direct service program for trafficked and high risk Native girls is screening all youth entering the program for sexual exploitation risk factors and involvement. Using standardized assessment tools we found that 71 % of girls entering the program had experienced long term homelessness, had a family member diagnosed with mental illness, and had experienced harassment and/or physical or sexual violence. Eighty six percent had a history of child protection systems involvement, and the same percentage (86%) of these girls reported some exposure to the sex trade. At a six month follow up screening, 71% of the girls were safely housed and 100% had begun receiving mental health care. All girls in this program also reported that they now knew where to get help and how to avoid high risk situations and people who were a bad influence on them. Three girls from the current cohort graduated from high school this year, the first in any of their extended families to do so. This program is the only one of its kind to provide these culturally strength based services to this population, has a wait list, and is receiving more referrals from law enforcement agencies every week.
 
We continue to receive reports from girls in our programs, from Greater Minnesota tribal sexual assault advocates, and local law enforcement that Native girls are being targeted for recruitment by traffickers to the oil fields of North Dakota and being sold in the “man camps”. One alleged incident involved a 14 year old Native girl who was reportedly sold to 40 men in one night. A 15 year old girl in our program reported that her brother’s best friend had been making frequent attempts to take her to North Dakota where, he said, she could “make lots of money” for them.
 
The Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition’s 2011 report Garden of Truth: the Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota interviewed 105 Native women with prostitution arrest records. They found that a majority of the women had been sexually abused as children, had been raped, and were currently or previously homeless. Anchorage Police and FBI statistics show that Alaska Native women represent 33 % of all prostituted and trafficked women in the city, yet Alaska Natives make up less than 8% of the total population. Most Native females are sold in urban areas, but it is unknown how many of these women initially came from reservation communities or are city residents. We have no data on the scope of exploitation of boys or GLBTQ or “Two Spirit” youth, but recognize them as also vulnerable. National statistics tell us that over 70 % of American Indian people in this country reside in urban areas, not on their home reservations. Solutions must include tribal and urban populations for maximum benefit.
 
We believe the data we have on hand to reflect only a small portion of the true picture of those who have been trafficked into prostitution, for a number of reasons. The widespread normalization of sexual violence in American Indian communities has numbed many youth to the point where they minimize and rationalize what is happening to them just as domestic violence victims do. Many are engaged in survival sex simply to have a place to sleep at night. Others are gang raped in by Native Mob or other local street gangs and are living in fear of the consequences if they do not comply. Native Mob is only one of the gangs we have seen involved in the trafficking of Native girls due to their unique vulnerability. Methods of recruitment can involve what we call “guerrilla pimping”, which is simply gang rape with brutal beatings, or “finesse pimping” , which is often much more difficult to detect and interrupt. This is a grooming process, and has a manipulative pattern similar to domestic violence perpetration, where the initial relationship is loving but becomes increasingly more controlling, with the end result being girls caught in a web of violence and abuse with little hope to escape. Drugs are often used to ensure compliance. Most of these girls have multiple risk factors such as homelessness, early sexual abuse, and/or addiction or mental illness of parents/caregivers. Willingness to report or cooperate with law enforcement is rare due to the lack of secure housing and deep, complex trauma these children suffer from. As they are reluctant to report to law enforcement, they are not counted in the national data sets as trafficking victims. The current requirement to have a law enforcement certification of victimization in order to be counted as a trafficking victim has limited our understanding of the scope of the problem nationally. We believe that 80 – 90% of trafficked youth are under the radar and not being reported for this reason.
 
The damage to the victims is severe in human and economic terms. Our 2012 research report Early Intervention to Avoid Sex Trading and Trafficking of Minnesota’s Female Youth: A Benefit-Cost Analysis, found the quantifiable damage to a juvenile female recruited into sexual slavery includes high rates of physical damage including traumatic brain injury, damage to reproductive systems, and injuries from violent assaults. Mental health issues such as PTSD, dis-associative disorders, complex anxiety disorders are common. We cannot quantify the damage to a child’s spirit, or self-esteem, or to her family. Yet this analysis shows a definitive return on investment to the taxpayer of $34 for every $1 spent on early intervention and prevention services. We know what works, and have the evidence that it not only saves lives, but saves taxpayer dollars. It is now a matter of prioritization.
 
Since the publication of our Shattered Hearts report, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center has engaged our local community and tribal partners in solutions. The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe is working to collect more data and create systemic responses to sex trafficking. I have conducted training in indigenous communities across the country, including the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Ft. Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. In each instance, there is a need for more awareness of the tactics being used by perpetrators, and requests for technical assistance in identifying and responding to this crime. There is a gap in the need for coordinated responses and the resources available. In North Dakota, for example, tribal sexual assault advocates report numerous young women who had reportedly been victimized by sex traffickers but were too frightened by threats of consequences to their loved ones to report these crimes to law enforcement. The Bakken Oil Fields are indeed a boon to the economy of the region, and have also created an explosive market for sex traffickers who find vulnerable victims among Native American and other marginalized groups. This presents the opportunity for the businesses that are profiting from the oil industry to step into their leadership role. There is a great need for more law enforcement, more awareness and education, and more victim services in this region. I hope that the industry will seize this opportunity to invest in the wellness of the entire community in which they now work and live.
 
The Minnesota Human Trafficking Task Force has created a strong multi-disciplinary response to human trafficking. In 2011 the State passed the Safe Harbor for Youth Act, which aligns state statute with the Federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act in recognizing any juvenile sold into prostitution as a victim of a crime. In 2012 we presented a state-wide housing and services response called No Wrong Door for Services to the legislature. This is a comprehensive approach – developed by teams of prosecutors, police officers, county child protection workers, social workers, faith community, public health professionals, educators, and front line advocates – to create an effective system of housing and services that would work in partnership with law enforcement and county child welfare teams to effectively identify victims of CSE and route them into appropriate healing services rather than the juvenile justice system. We were successful in securing initial funding to begin implementing the No Wrong Door Model, but are seeking additional resources to fully fund the comprehensive approach that includes more accurate data collection systems to help us better understand the scope of the problem. We are collectively designing more effective approaches to reduce the demand for sexually exploited persons, for without the demand there would be no supply.
 
I want to again thank the Committee Members for their leadership in recognizing the importance of a comprehensive approach to ending the sexual slavery of vulnerable people. No person should be viewed as a commodity. One study tells us that a pimp can earn between $150,000 - $200,000 for each single child sold repeatedly for sex. Sex trafficking is a highly lucrative criminal enterprise that is robbing our communities of the youth, who are our future. It is reliant upon a market demand that must be stopped. We need more resources across sectors, but particularly within law enforcement, victim services, and child protection departments – to begin to interrupt this human rights violation and ensure that all children can grow up without being sentenced to a lifetime of trauma and violence.
 
Thank you.

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Rural Alaska blog: The Village : ‘I can’t get my sister back:’ Investigators warn of sex traffickers targeting Natives | adn.com

Posted by thevillage

Posted: December 2, 2010 - 7:21 pm

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By KYLE HOPKINS
khopkins@adn.com

A disproportionate number of women working in the Anchorage sex trade are Alaska Native and pimps and sex traffickers are pursuing Native girls at events like AFN, police warned tribes and villagers today.

“There have been traffickers and pimps who specifically target Native girls because they feel that they’re versatile and they can post them (online) as Hawaiian, as Native, as Asian, as you name it,” said Jolene Goeden, a special agent for the FBI in Anchorage.

Far from home and surrounded by strangers, girls from remote villages are particularly vulnerable to sex-trade recruiters said Goeden and Sgt. Kathy Lacey, supervisor for the Anchorage police vice unit. The investigators delivered a kind of “Prostitution 101” to people from villages across the state at an annual Bureau of Indian Affairs conference, telling community leaders and health workers to be on the lookout for pimps preying on Alaska Native women and girls.

The pair gave a a similar, shorter talk in October in Bethel. For some, the stories were personal.

“We don’t think that this is happening in our in small villages. It happens. It happened to my baby sister,” said a woman from a rural hub city, who said her sister was 14 years old when she disappeared while visiting the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage about four years ago.

Her family tracked the girl down at a downtown shelter for homeless teens, her body surging with drugs, said the woman, who I’m not identifying because it would also identify her sister.

“That really ruined her life,” the woman said sharply. “I can’t get my sister back the way she …”

Her voiced trailed off before a shell-shocked crowd of about 200 at the Egan Civic and Convention Center.

Sex traffickers use a combination of mind games and beatings, promises and drugs to control girls, authorities said.

Alaska Native girls are commonly lured from their hometowns by friends or relatives who are already working as prostitutes. They invite the girl to come hang out and go shopping rent-free. Others are recruited while visiting the city.

About one-third of the women arrested this year for prostitution in Anchorage are Alaska Native, according to Lacey's figures. It’s unclear how many under-age Native girls are the victims of pimps or sex traffickers.

Four Anchorage residents charged last year with running a sex-trafficking ring got at least some of their “stable” of prostitutes from Alaska Native villages, prowling the AFN convention and streets surrounding the Covenant House shelter.

(Read an account of phone calls overheard on a jail phone, including one of the men talking about trying to "catch a Native" during AFN.)

It was an Alaska Native girl who moved to Anchorage to stay with family at the age of 12 who helped point investigators toward another prostitution kingpin: Don Webster, also known as Jerry Starr, Goeden said.

Webster, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2008, had tried to recruit the girl, Goeden said.

The FBI agent got to know the teen during visits to a youth jail. The pair talked about how the girl ended up selling her body at age 14 in Anchorage.

“Her response to me was, ‘I could be back home in the village where I could be having sex with my grandpa for free, or I could be here getting paid for me,’” Goeden said.

“I didn’t know what to say. I had no idea how to respond to this little girl.”

Regardless of where they’re from, many prostitutes are former sexual abuse victims, Lacey told the crowd. Many are addicted to drugs, Lacey said.

“It used to be every prostitute we patted down had a crack pipe on them. Not any more, the drug of choice is heroin,” she said after today’s meeting.

Many are runaways. Under-age kids can’t rent cars or rent hotel rooms, after all, and they have to get money somehow.

“(That) especially holds true when you get young girls from the villages that come in here and they come in to visit an auntie or whoever they’re going to visit and they decide that they’re gong to run away,” Lacey said. Very quickly they’re propositioned by someone trying to lead them on a path toward prostitution, she said.

Authorities in Alaska prefer to prosecute pimps under federal sex trafficking laws. Under those rules, anyone who uses force, coercion or fraud to sell commercial sex acts can be prosecuted for trafficking. The law also applies to anyone who pimps girls under the age of 18.

In comparison, the state law only allows for prosecution of trafficking if the victim is transferred across state lines, Lacey said. She is working with Goeden and the Children’s Justice Act task force to strengthen state laws and mirror federal penalties.

People always ask why the girls don’t leave pimps or sex traffickers on their own, the investigators told the crowd.

Some feel so bad about themselves they don’t believe they deserve anything better, they said. Others don’t know who to ask for help or are afraid of violent reprisals.

Some, particularly those from small communities, don’t want their friends or family to know what’s happening to them.

“These girls typically, almost always, do not see themselves as a victim,” Goeden said

Have tips or questions for the investigators? You can reach Goeden at Jolene.goeden@ic.fbi.gov or by calling 276-4441 and Lacey at 786-8500 or klacey@ci.anchorage.ak.us.

Source:Anchorage Daily News

Rural Alaska blog: The Village : ‘I can’t get my sister back:’ Investigators warn of sex traffickers targeting Natives | adn.com

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