January is Human & Sex Trafficking Awareness Month, and to bring some awareness to it lets discuss the ways it impacts our community and how to culturally address it.

The U.S. Department of Justice(DOJ) defines human trafficking as “a crime involving the exploitation of a person for labor, services, or commercial sex”. This crime, while widely spoken of, is not addressed as often as it could be from an institutional lens. The most trafficked groups include Native/Indigenous American women, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, undocumented immigrants, runaways, homeless youth, and people below the poverty line. Minority groups are often systematically disadvantaged in financial, geological, and corporate. Making someone an easy target starts with making sure no one is truly looking for them, which means decreasing their social status. 

Black and Indigenous American communities are on the front lines when it comes to those least often looked for in cases of Human Trafficking. When it comes to sex trafficking specifically, Black women make up 40% of all survivors and victims per a 2-year study by the DOJ. Minority groups are less likely to receive as much visibility, funding, and support compared to their white counterparts in the fight against human trafficking. It should never be a matter of race, physical ability, sexuality,  or money when it comes to who gets help. When you think of all the programs, flyers, and general public distaste for the subject, you’d think that this would be something we readily attack. In reality, many victims and survivors of trafficking are criminalized and socially penalized for speaking up. Prostitution is illegal, so when trafficking victims are arrested for solicitation there is less sympathy for them. Many people see them as prostitutes doing the bare minimum to work and building a criminal record, when in reality these people are extremely vulnerable. Many do not speak up because of abuse, lack of police cooperation or to protect someone else who is still in a human trafficking ring.

While sex work isn’t as taboo to speak on as it used to be, there are still culturally held practices of victim blaming present among our political and social peers. Often people who escape these situations are held accountable for the necessary harm done to their abusers, as if this is not an act of self-defense. It calls into question the intentions of those who are supposed to uphold the morality of our community. While I myself am not starting the call or introducing a new question, I do implore readers to look into how these cases are often handled and to speak up when they see injustice practiced in our judicial system. Locally combatting of human trafficking looks like supporting homeless shelters, anti-human trafficking movements and Black grass-roots organizations dedicated to supporting the community. Support comes through not just funding but volunteering, communing with your neighbors, amplifying the stories of survivors and aiding in the fight against legislation that disproportionately affects Black and brown communities.

Sources:

DOJ statistics: Polaris Project

DOJ Definition of trafficking: https://www.justice.gov/humantrafficking

“Who Is the Most Vulnerable to Human Trafficking?” from DOJ: https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/04-2024/human_trafficking.html

“The Disturbing Connection Between Foster Care and Domestic Child Sex Trafficking” from NCJFCJ: https://www.ncjfcj.org/webcasts/the-disturbing-connection-between-foster-care-and-domestic-child-sex-trafficking/