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http://thewip.net/2014/11/04/recourse-for-trafficked-native-women-in-the-duluth-harbor/
USA – Perseverance for
Women’s Rights Issues May Take Time, and Valuable Information Come
Unexpectedly, but Miracles in Women’s Justice Advocacy CAN Happen.
USA – RECOURSE FOR
TRAFFICKED NATIVE WOMEN IN GREAT LAKES DULUTH HARBOR
By Christine Stark* – USA – November 4, 2014
I am of
Anishinaabe and Cherokee ancestry and a MSW student at the University of
Minnesota Duluth. Six years ago, on the White Earth reservation, an elder told
me how the Anishinaabe bloodline is found across the world due to slavery. He
then added that prostituted women are not to blame for being in prostitution. I
have not seen him since.
Three
years later, after presenting at Black Bear Casino on a report I co-authored, “Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in
Minnesota,” another elder stopped me in the foyer to tell me how
Native women, girls, and boys have been sold for sex on the ships in the Duluth
port. She said some have been shipped into other countries. She gave me details
I had not heard before, then turned on her heel and disappeared into the casino
lights. I have not seen her since.
And
just over two years ago, in Salt Lake City, I attended a presentation on
trafficking by a U.S. Attorney. Dozing off and on throughout the presentation,
I woke fully when the attorney mentioned “maritime law.” I called out to the
attorney, “We have a situation in Duluth that we were told we cannot do
anything about legally because it is international waters. It’s hard to believe
that is true. Is it?”
“No,”
the presenter said. “There are specific laws to deal with that situation.” A
man sitting in the row in front of me turned around. “Are you from Minnesota?”
he asked. “Yes,” I said. “I can tell you why you were told that,” he responded.
“Native advocates were told this so you wouldn’t pursue anything legally.”
In
January 2013, I transferred from a Twin Cities-based MSW program to the
University of Minnesota Duluth’s MSW program. A week into my coursework, a
friend in Duluth told me that a Duluth authority figure publicly claimed that
the trafficking of Native American women on ships was not an issue. Another
friend of mine said that the authorities were trying to rewrite the narrative
after the release of the report I co-authored “Garden of Truth,” in which
nearly half of the women we interviewed were from Duluth.
In
“Garden of Truth,” 92 percent of those interviewed wanted to leave prostitution
immediately, 72 percent had been sexually assaulted as a child by an average of
four perpetrators, and nearly two-thirds of the women had relatives that went
through the boarding schools. Many of the women spoke eloquently of the
connections they saw between prostitution and the colonization of Indian
people. “I have an idea,” I said to my Duluth friend. “Interview women who had
been on the ships and document their information.”
I created
a questionnaire with feedback from other Native advocates. I interviewed Native
women who had been trafficked and prostituted on the ships as well as Native
men who had information to share. What emerged was a system of sexual
exploitation involving the complicity, perpetration, and collaboration of ship
captains, taxi cab drivers, hotels, brothels, street pimps, dockworkers,
organized crime, gangs, and others in Duluth, Superior, and the surrounding
area. This system lured and coerced Native women, girls, and boys (and
sometimes infants) onto the ships for prostitution and trafficking – what was
often euphemistically referred to as “the parties on the boats.”
In May,
2013 at a conference in St. Paul, I mentioned the ships. To my surprise, an
Anishinaabe woman from Canada told me after the panel that she had been sold on
the ships from Thunder Bay to the Duluth port starting at age twelve. She
recounted a similar story, from a Canadian point-of-view, to those of the women
and men in Duluth and Superior. Those in Duluth recounted women, children, and
even babies being bought and sold for sex on the ships for decades. They talked
about the connections among selling women and youth on the ships with other
businesses in Duluth and Superior, including taxi services, brothels, hotels,
street pimps and bars. One of the women said about her years on the ships, “It
was hell. Pure hell.”
Later
that day, I approached a lawyer at the conference. “Listen,” I said. “This is
what the women are saying.” I relayed the stories about the ships. “We’ve been
told there is nothing we can do legally. We’ve also been told there is
something we can do legally. What’s the deal?” From her I learned that there
are lawyers lined up across the country who would take on a case like this. I
learned it is a civil case with a statute of limitations of ten years and that
The Port Authority, the dock owners, and others can be sued.
A few
months later, at dinner with a friend who happened to be a legal scholar on
disability, I briefed her on the ships. After I finished, she stated, “The
women could use state Protection and
Advocacy Systems (P&As) for people with disabilities. People who
have been trafficked will be dealing with more severe mental health
consequences due to extremes of traumatic stress, and may therefore be eligible
for services and advocacy through P&As. In that event, P&As would
prospectively have legal standing to take various types of legal action on
their behalf.”
A few
weeks later, on August 3, 2013, the Star and Tribune published an Op Ed
piece I wrote about the “Garden of Truth.” After 25 years of activism, I have
learned you never know when you will get another opportunity to be heard, so I
added three sentences about the ships. Much to my surprise, the Duluth
Tribune picked up the Op Ed piece and a vacationing CBC reporter from
Canada saw the spread and requested an interview. Canadians are concerned about
the ship connection because in the past thirty years over 1,100 First Nation
women in Canada have been reported missing or murdered and people want to know
what happened to them. One interview led to another and the ship story lit up
Canadian media like an ore boat at night.
While
it is important that survivors and advocates know all the legal options
available to them, it is extremely difficult for survivors of the ships to
initiate a lawsuit and to remain safe during litigation. Nearly all of the
women I interviewed are poor, homeless, or semi-homeless. They have suffered
tremendous physical, spiritual, and psychological trauma. These barriers keep
most from ever pursuing legal recourse. Anyone harmed on those boats, or harmed
on shore by the crew, who chooses to pursue a civil lawsuit needs protection
and support from individuals, advocates, and the community. Right now that
support base does not exist. If any of the women or men harmed on those boats
qualifies for P&As some help can be provided, making it slightly more
plausible for those trafficked on the ships to stand up to the entrenched
power.
Native
individuals, families, and the community have suffered tremendously from the
sexual exploitation of our relatives on the ships and from the state and
federal governments’ lack of protection. The losses suffered by Native families
and the Native community due to the trafficking are deep, making the enormity
of the harm and pain endured over generations difficult to comprehend. In
Minnesota, a civil lawsuit targeting businesses and authorities that
perpetuated and profited from the trafficking Native women and youth is one
option for addressing the historical and ongoing sexual exploitation. A civil
lawsuit could also be used to remedy the harm caused by systems of trafficking
at any port in the U.S.
In
Anishinaabe ways, women are the protectors and carriers of the water. As we
move toward telling the whole story of this country, and this region in
particular, we make healing for those harmed a possibility. We move toward
balance. And, at least in the American justice system, civil law is about
balance.
This
work was done in conjunction with Mending the Sacred Hoop.
*Christine
Stark is a speaker, organizer, trainer, and an award-winning writer
and visual artist of Anishinaabe/Cherokee ancestry. Her essays, poems, and
creative non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications. Her first novel, Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation,
was a Lambda Literary Finalist. Her poem, “Momma’s Song”, was released by Fred
Ho and the Afro Asian Music Ensemble as a double manga CD. She is also a
co-editor of Not for Sale,
an international anthology about prostitution, trafficking, and pornography and
a co-author of the groundbreaking “Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and
Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota.”