Summit battles Native human trafficking

Family members ‘barter’ their young relatives for services

Earlier this year, sheriff’s deputies arrested six people they say operated an interstate sex trafficking ring, driving young, vulnerable women around the nation, including in Albuquerque, and forcing them to have sex and turn over profits to the group.

This is the stereotypical picture of human trafficking.

“But trafficking looks very different in our communities,” said Deleana OtherBull, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women.

Instead of organized exploitation of runaways, family members are “bartering” their young relatives for drugs, alcohol or other payments or services, OtherBull and others say.

Nearly 200 people from New Mexico’s pueblos, tribes and advocacy agencies gathered in Albuquerque this week to focus on the issue at the 5th annual Tribal Leaders Summit hosted by the Coalition, which works with Native communities to solve problems.

“This is a very, very sensitive issue,” said Arlen Quetawki Sr., tribal councilman and former governor of Zuni Pueblo.

He said he attended the conference to learn the latest research on the issue so he can bring it back to his community, many of whom, he said, are skeptical that such acts are actually happening among their neighbors.

OtherBull said this is the main problem in addressing human trafficking in Native families.

“Trafficking is not a new concept to our communities, but the word ‘trafficking’ is,” she said. “Some of these terms don’t exist in our languages. So we have to start by giving language for concepts that are not new to us.”

So the conference focused on creating an awareness that human trafficking isn’t always, or even usually, like the interstate ring busted by sheriff’s deputies in Albuquerque.

Shelane Rosales, who works as a case worker with First Nations Community HealthSource’s sex trafficking unit, said a new awareness of how it looks in Native communities, even those communities in Albuquerque, should increase the number of people who can get help through her or other organizations.

“They need to know what to look for, the warning signs,” she said.

OtherBull said victims themselves need a new awareness about what is happening to them.

“To them, what they see happening is ‘I’m helping my family provide. I’m doing my part’,” OtherBull said.

Once people start recognizing such “bartering” as actually human trafficking, the more resources can f low to communities to fund the counseling, medical and living services needed to heal victims, OtherBull said.