The Violation of Life and Liberty: How Trafficking Impacts Indigenous Communities
Let’s talk about the disproportionate amount of indigenous peoples facing a high risk of human trafficking.
The Human Trafficking Center stated that “50-80% of identified human trafficking victims are or have been involved with child welfare services at some point.” Other risk factors involve poverty, limited education, or lack of work opportunity. When we compare those factors to the demographics in our country, it is estimated by Inequality.org that the median White family has 41 times more wealth than the median Black family and 22 times more wealth than the median Latino family.
Systemic racism plays a significant role in the inequity our people of color in this country face, and it is no different when it comes to human trafficking. Whether it is the racial disparities of incarceration, or the disparities of trafficked women, the common denominator remains evident. Within the American society, Black men are incarcerated 5 times more than a white man, while Black women are that of 2 times more than a white woman. The Bureau of Justice Statistics stated in 2011 that more than half (62 percent) of confirmed sex trafficking suspects were black, while confirmed labor trafficking suspects were more likely to be Hispanic (48 percent). If those numbers donʻt already highlight the dense disproportion of victims, remember that there are an estimated 40.3 million human trafficking victims globally, and only .04% of those victims are identified.
An article by Lucy Anna Gray highlights the frustration and cases of Indigenous women in North America being disregarded by law enforcement. Annita Lucceshi, a PhD student in Southern Alberta states:
“Tribes are sovereign nations and they should be treated as such. That means they have complete jurisdiction over crimes that happen in their territory, and that means that when one of their citizens dies or goes missing, they must be notified. But for some reason, they’re not being invited to the table. They’re not even being notified, and they’re having no say in how things are handled. That’s the only example in the world when a nation isn’t notified when one of their citizens is killed.”
“There were 5,646 Native American women entered as missing into the National Crime Information Centre database last year, with 5,711 in 2016. In the first six months of 2018 there were 2,758 indigenous woman reported missing,” says Gray.
A webinar by Jenna Novak and Lisa Heth called, “Coming Together to Address Human Trafficking in Native Communities,” speaks on the harmful outcomes Indigenous women faced due to colonization. A major point includes the shift in lifestyle and the inevitable consequences of Indigenous people being forced to immediately adapt to Western culture. Where Indigenous women were held in high regard as child bearers and leaders, they were inhumanely treated by foreigners. Concepts of property and ownership did not exist in their common language or culture prior to Western influence.
Ownership of a woman’s body is a transgression against humanity in itself.
The treatment of women as a commodity is too prevalent to ignore. There is no criteria or guideline that decides what makes a person vulnerable to human trafficking. In reality, there is no guarantee that all of us, including you and I, are safe from trafficking. What does set those of us at risk apart, however, are our socio-economic and racial status. The disproportionate reality of those living as slaves versus those of us who are living free are nothing short of horrifying.
“There were 5,646 Native American women entered as missing into the National Crime Information Centre database last year, with 5,711 in 2016. In the first six months of 2018 there were 2,758 indigenous woman reported missing,”
While Indigenous communities, as well as, people of color are substantially more vulnerable to the violation of humanity that is human trafficking, it is in our power to recognize why people of color are a common demographic. Possessing an awareness for this allows conversation to begin in order to repair the transgressions made against Indigenous communities.
The traumatic history of colonization in Indigenous land is still occurring, only the property that is quietly being violated are that of the people itself.
For those reading, I encourage you to have conversations with those around you regarding the demographics of trafficking. Challenge your communities to identify and eliminate the societal biases. It is in our power to break the wheel that perpetuates systemic racism, and it is especially in our power to really see those at risk of trafficking to end this cycle.
About the Author
Kanoelehua Robinson is a Native-Hawaiian from the small town of Hilo, Hawai'i. She loves finding new music, napping on the beach, and traveling, and she is incredibly passionate about her culture. She likes to sing and play guitar, but she's not like, "you should make YouTube covers" good. With her passions in art, music, and indigenous cultures, she hopes to use them toward her future career as she studies Public Relations at Azusa Pacific University.