Trafficking of American Indian Women in Minnesota
Minnesota is ranked 13th in the United States for Trafficking of Women.
The United States has a long history of the trafficking of Native women that began with the colonization of this country and continues today having created a social landscape of poverty, homelessness and other socio-economic factors that make Native women and girls more vulnerable to prostitution and trafficking.
In North Minneapolis, 24% of women on probation for prostitution are Native women (ten times the proportion of American Indians living in the city). In Alaska, 33% of women prostituted and trafficked are Native even though Alaska Natives comprise 8% of the population.
Here in Duluth, we had a history of the trafficking of Native girls who were taken on the ships that dock at our port, and in some cases, held against their will and trafficked into prostitution. Today, they are still being trafficked, except that instead of being taken onto the boats, we hear that there are apartments set up for the specific use of prostitution.
Today, we see organized gangs recruiting and exploiting our Native girls, grooming and providing shelter in exchange for prostituting themselves.
As members of the Duluth American Indian Commission and as Native men, we say it is time to break the silence around the trafficking of our women by standing up to the predators that destroy the lives of women. We call on the criminal justice system to prioritize the investigation, arrest and prosecution of people who make a living off of the bodies of Native women and girls. We ask our community to be the eyes and ears and to report any and all sexual exploitation they see. We ask our legislature to increase the sentencing guidelines of those convicted of trafficking and to increase the funding for women getting out of the “life”.
And, finally we are asking Native men to stand up and be counted as the protectors and not the predators of Native women, educate yourselves and your community: Garden of Truth, Shattered Hearts and other material on the trafficking of Native women.
American Indian Commission statement presented by Ricky DeFoe, Co-chair of the American Indian Commission, at a Trafficking Awareness Press Conference on January 9, 2013
Minnesota is ranked 13th in the United States for Trafficking of Women.
The United States has a long history of the trafficking of Native women that began with the colonization of this country and continues today having created a social landscape of poverty, homelessness and other socio-economic factors that make Native women and girls more vulnerable to prostitution and trafficking.
In North Minneapolis, 24% of women on probation for prostitution are Native women (ten times the proportion of American Indians living in the city). In Alaska, 33% of women prostituted and trafficked are Native even though Alaska Natives comprise 8% of the population.
Here in Duluth, we had a history of the trafficking of Native girls who were taken on the ships that dock at our port, and in some cases, held against their will and trafficked into prostitution. Today, they are still being trafficked, except that instead of being taken onto the boats, we hear that there are apartments set up for the specific use of prostitution.
Today, we see organized gangs recruiting and exploiting our Native girls, grooming and providing shelter in exchange for prostituting themselves.
As members of the Duluth American Indian Commission and as Native men, we say it is time to break the silence around the trafficking of our women by standing up to the predators that destroy the lives of women. We call on the criminal justice system to prioritize the investigation, arrest and prosecution of people who make a living off of the bodies of Native women and girls. We ask our community to be the eyes and ears and to report any and all sexual exploitation they see. We ask our legislature to increase the sentencing guidelines of those convicted of trafficking and to increase the funding for women getting out of the “life”.
And, finally we are asking Native men to stand up and be counted as the protectors and not the predators of Native women, educate yourselves and your community: Garden of Truth, Shattered Hearts and other material on the trafficking of Native women.
American Indian Commission statement presented by Ricky DeFoe, Co-chair of the American Indian Commission, at a Trafficking Awareness Press Conference on January 9, 2013
