HEADLINES: Marie: This week on Minnesota Native News, we hear about a new task force uniting tribes in Minnesota to combat sex trafficking. Reporter Cole Premo has the story.
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In January, the Department of Justice held a conference in Palm Springs, California addressing sex trafficking in Native American communities across the nation. It was the first of its kind.
There, Officer Kelly Haffield of the Fond Du Lac police department spoke about the formation of a multi-jurisdictional coalition. It addresses what she calls an epidemic of sex trafficking in Minnesota. The grant-funded coalition is called: Tribes United Against Sex Trafficking, or TRUST.
HAFFIELD: “This new grant was looking for a task force, and the idea of starting a task force that was strictly with native American tribes throughout Minnesota came up and we just dug her heels in and started working towards, towards that.”
At the conference, Haffield and then interim police chief Mike Diver stressed why the coalition was formed. T o help tribal police combat sex trafficking in an environment where there is a lack of response from the federal government.
HAFFIELD: “That gave us a little fuel the fire a little bit for wanting to have a Native American task force. We felt that we could better serve the Native American community because we exist within the Native American community.”
And that’s important because this issue is very real, despite the lack of statistics, and it being what Haffield calls a “hard pill to swallow” for tribes across the state.
HAFFIELD: “It affects the Native American community more than any other community. And it’s lot, a lot of it’s based on historical trauma and a lot of it’s based on just the lifestyle of native Americans with the poverty level, the vulnerabilities of the number of kids that are in foster care. That type of thing. I learned very quickly that this is, is more or less an epidemic throughout the country. But it even more so with Native Americans.”
One of the main problems is the fact that the victims are so young. She’s currently working on a case with middle-school aged children.
HAFFIELD: “Right now is that it seems the emphasis seems to be more on the children and it starts with runaways, runaway kids and um, that’s, that’s a red flag,.”
Unfortunately, there have been cases where sex trafficking has taken place in casinos, so part of what TRUST does is train casino employees.
HAFFIELD: “Everybody from housekeeping to the security to the front desk of the hotel. Um, all the employees at the hotels are trained and sex trafficking and learning what some of the red flags are, um, when they, with customers that are coming in that maybe that’s what they may be trying to do is, is uh, work, uh, sex trafficking out of a, one of the rooms. So it starts there.”
I also spoke with recently appointed chief of police Herb Fineday at Fond Du Lac, who is also a member of the tribe, and he said his background of criminal law enforcement showed him first hand why TRUST is needed.
FINEDAY: “Working narcotics and I have a understanding of why we needed this. We simply, because of what I’ve run into working, working drugs, whether it was at the casino or a girl’s doing favors for drugs and a by definition that falls under sex trafficking, you know, what the stuff that I would run into.”
Fineday says narcotics, especially opioids nowadays, are overshadowing sex trafficking when it comes to equal enforcement, but the two have a very strong connection.
FINEDAY: So, it’s still gonna continue regardless if it’s here or not on the opioids are here, are not in my opinion, it needs, it needs a equal enforcement
He says, since statistics are hard to come by, it’s hard to say if sex trafficking is getting worse.
FINEDAY:“It’s definitely holding steady.”
Fineday says the coaltion is needed and there was no time to wait for the federal government to step in.
FINEDAY: “Like anything else, if we want to take care of ourselves, it’s gotta start at our level anyway. On the federal level, I think the only thing that we can actually get help from them is funding process and legislative change. In my opinion, that’s the only way we can utilize them. But if we want to change it has to start at our level, from the ground up.”
So far, Officer Haffield says TRUST has helped fund another sex trafficking investigator in Leech Lake.
HAFFIELD: “So now we’ll have, we have two investigators. My goal for him is to get him up to speed and pretty much do what I did the first year and that is to attend as much training and conferences as he can to get a handle on sex trafficking and learn everything that he can.”
For the time being, Haffield says the biggest thing TRUST can do to help: information sharing.
HAFFIELD: “Sometimes that information gets lost and we’re not aware of it. And if we’re not aware of it, we can’t help and it’s very important to the reservation to the tribes that they know what’s happening with, with their band members and especially the children that are out there and involved in sex trafficking and are involved in calls and other agencies and we’re not always getting that information.”
Haffield says a new website should be up and running soon that not only helps with the information sharing, but is also a place to learn more about the issue.
There are about 8 tribes out of the 11 tribes that are fully committed to the task force so far, but Haffield hopes to get all on board soon.
I’m Cole Premo.