While Human Trafficking Awareness Month has just concluded, February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. Bringing awareness to the intersectionality of these issues, specifically in the Indigenous Community, highlights key gaps in how information is reported and tracked (or the lack thereof). Keeping the conversation restricted to specific days of the year feels inauthentic if we are truly working towards allyship.Below, you'll find a series of resources from (and for) the American Indian Community. We invite you to share your own experiences via social media (tag @ywcachicago) or by emailing communications@ywcachicago.org so that we can uplift your voices as well.

STATISTICS ON AMERICAN INDIAN HUMAN TRAFFICKING

A study in 2004 found that American Indians in urban areas experience rates of violent victimization at 2.5 times higher than all other races.^[1] However, the number of individuals identified as being American Indian in cases of human trafficking is more difficult to gauge. In 2017, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report titled ‘‘Human Trafficking: Investigations in Indian Country or Involving Native Americans and Actions Needed to Better Report on Victims Served.’’The conclusions of this report show that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the U.S. Attorneys' Offices are required to record in their case management systems whether a human trafficking offense was involved in the case. They are not, however, required to document the individual's status as being American Indian.^[2] Without such documentation it is difficult to determine whether the demographic is being served, as needed.To compound the issue, there is a lack of communication and cohesion among law enforcement agencies when dealing with American Indians who go missing.

According to the National Crime Information Center, in 2016, there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls, though the US Department of Justice’s federal missing persons database – the national information clearinghouse and resource center for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases across the United States, called the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) – only logged 116 of those cases.^[3]

These numbers express the need for more services to all populations affected by violence and human trafficking. Human trafficking is a crime that crosses state borders and involves law enforcement agencies across the nation, including tribal law enforcement agencies.

Timeline of Bills Impacting American Indian Human Trafficking

• 1994 - Congress implemented the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act^[4]
• 2000 - VAWA was amended and reauthorized under the Trafficking and Violence Protection Act^[5]
• 2005 - The Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act criminalizes interstate violence against women, provides funding for education, training and shelters, and requires courts to give full faith and credit to enforce foreign state or tribal laws.^[6]

• 2010 - The Tribal Law and Order Act aimed at reducing the prevalence of violent crime in Indian Country and combat sexual and domestic violence against Alaska Native and Native American women; and increase and standardize the collection of criminal data to and the sharing of criminal history information among federal, state, tribal, and local officials responsible for responding to and investigating crimes in Indian Country.^[7]
• 2021 - Reauthorization of VAWA expanding special criminal jurisdiction of Tribal courts to cover non-Native perpetrators of sexual assault, child abuse, stalking, and sex trafficking.^[8]