By BROOKLYN BROWN
One Feather Reporter
CHEROKEE, N.C. – On the afternoon of Thursday, April 25, the Cherokee One Feather held a joint meeting with Special Agents Bianca Pearson and Kaley Kowalsky from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and Cody White, attorney for the Cherokee Indian Police Department (CIPD), to discuss the issue of human trafficking on the Qualla Boundary.
The meeting followed an interview held on Jan. 25 with Shelli Buckner, EBCI senior tribal prosecutor from the Office of the Tribal Prosecutor; Driver Blythe, public relations assistant from the Office of the Principal Chief; Marsha Jackson, then-Domestic Violence Program manager; Kayla Bigmeat, then-intervention project coordinator; Lisa Ivey, RN, BSN, Forensic Nurse coordinator; Brooklyn Brown, Cherokee One Feather reporter; and Robert Jumper, Cherokee One Feather editor. The January meeting discussed social services necessities for combatting human trafficking. Read the article from the January meeting.
The April meeting discussed law enforcement in human trafficking. Also in attendance at the April meeting were Buckner, Bigmeat, Jumper, and Brown. The meeting included vital information regarding human trafficking investigations, victimology, and prosecution. Sheyahshe Littledave and Driver Blythe from the Office of the Principal Chief were invited but were unable to attend.
Ugvwiyuhi (Principal Chief) Michell Hicks shared the following statement with the One Feather regarding human trafficking:
“Human trafficking is a grave violation of fundamental human rights, and it requires collective action from us all to combat it. Raising awareness and empowering individuals to recognize the signs and take action are essential.
We know the disproportionate prevalence of human trafficking within Indigenous communities, and we understand the challenges involved including the historical and systemic factors that contribute to vulnerability. We must acknowledge and address these challenges with sensitivity, understanding, and targeted interventions to effectively combat human trafficking and protect our community.
The Tribal Council, Vice Chief, and I stand united in our commitment to ensure that our community is a place where everyone is safe, valued, and free from exploitation.”
To start the meeting, Special Agent Pearson recalled her first sex trafficking sting with the FBI.
“I started in a small office in Johnson City, Tenn., and there were always rumors around functions like the NASCAR races and big events like the Super Bowl and people being brought in for that,” Pearson said. “We had what’s called an intelligence gap, meaning we couldn’t answer the question: Is there trafficking going on at this function? Because nobody’s ever done any investigative work to figure that out.”
To gain that experience in investigative work, Pearson worked the Indianapolis 500 as her first sex trafficking sting. “If we encounter an adult victim, the goal is not to prosecute them. The goal is not to arrest them because of the history of understanding how people get into this. You don’t have the same victimology in human trafficking like you do in anything else.”
Pearson developed a class at the Basic Law Enforcement Academy in Tennessee on investigating human trafficking, as the crime is particularly difficult to investigate, especially considering the complex victimology of trafficking victims.
“The sex trafficking brain is similar to a prisoner of war. The biggest hurdle initially is understanding that you don’t know what you’re talking about or who you’re dealing with on a psychological and mental behavioral level – surrounding yourself with people who are able to provide that awareness and help you manage or be able to interact with these victims is a key part,” she shared.
“These victims don’t see themselves as victims. To them, this is something that finally provides them stability and consistency that they never had. For an outsider, that stability and consistency doesn’t look like that, but for them it does. They have food, they have money, they have a place to stay. You don’t face a victim that has these same social and psychological factors surrounding their victimization.”
Pearson said investigating human trafficking requires the collaboration of law enforcement and social services with a victim-centered approach. “You can’t law enforcement your way out of this. We’re really ill-equipped to handle the needs of these victims—it’s not a law enforcement function. You need social services.”
All attendees agreed at the April meeting, as they did at the January meeting, that sex trafficking is happening on the Qualla Boundary. Trafficking can and does happen in any location, but Pearson says casinos are a common location for hotel sex trafficking. “You don’t have to be a trained investigator to know that it happens in every casino throughout the country. It is a very popular way to try to locate traffickers and they’re victims.”
White added, “I think any place that you have money, you’re going to have crime. They feed on each other. Specifically, from the sex trafficking realm, it was sex for money, money for something else. There were steps. They cut all of that out. Now, it’s sex for anything of value, sex for drugs, which is primarily what we see.”
White also spoke to the generational aspect of sex trafficking, which is similar to a subset of sex trafficking called familial trafficking, the trafficking of family members. “Another thing that I have seen numerous times here is either generational trauma associated with sexual abuse or sex trafficking.”
Pearson explained the generational impact associated with sex trafficking. “Victims are more susceptible when they have high Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) scores, involvement in the juvenile justice system, involvement in the foster care system, experiences with physical and sexual child abuse. With sex trafficking victims, you’re going to find a history of all those things because it’s that instability and the need for consistency that makes them vulnerable to traffickers.”
White noted the importance of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) Movement and #MeToo Movement in raising awareness for sex trafficking. “It’s given a platform and a voice to those that have been quiet for a long time, to know there’s this thing that exists that they can be a part of and help facilitate the conversations—that are sometimes very hard conversations that they may not be able to have with family or friends. They have a space to share their story.”
White says acknowledgement is key in moving forward to combat the issue of human trafficking in our community. “I think that it is paramount that we acknowledge that it exists. It is okay to say it’s here. I think that everyone is accepting, ‘Okay, we know it’s here. Let’s move forward.’ Teach your children and tell the officers. It really helps if there’s family and community participation. It helps to have a support system, especially when you have a child victim. If they feel as though their family is behind them, they’re much more likely to be cooperative in the investigation, cooperative in the prosecution, and be able to get through this sometimes-painstaking process that is the criminal justice process.”
There is a complexity in identifying and prosecuting the crime, but White assures the community that CIPD is aware and investigating, even if “sex trafficking” is not the charge that is listed. “You may not see it on charging, you may not see it in certain things, but know that we’re looking for it. Just because not every single case is charged as sex trafficking doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist as part of that case. Sometimes, with that evidence, instead of trying to prove it in a crime itself, it can bear more weight as part of a motive or something else that the prosecutor may present as part of the whole case.”
White shared a harrowing experience from his time in the Office of the Tribal Prosecutor. “There’s a panel of jurors that are sitting in the box, and for us, I think it was 12 at the time, and one of the questions I asked is, ‘Have you or any one of your immediate family ever been a victim of sexual abuse? Please raise your hand,’ And all 12 jurors raised their hand. I always kept that in the back of my mind.”
Special Agents Pearson and Kowalsky want the EBCI to know they are a resource, “I represent something that is the government. I recognize the history of that, and it’s been an important objective of mine to make sure that we had a dedicated person able to work Native American crimes,” Pearson said. “Just for your edification, the way we get involved is three-pronged: 1) It must be a major crime, and human trafficking would fall under that, 2) It could be a native or a non-native victim and/or subject, 3) It has to happen on the Qualla Boundary or Indian Country territory.”
“We work well with the EBCI and CIPD, but if people don’t feel comfortable going to CIPD, you can always make reports online to the FBI at fbi.gov. There’s a way to call in, there’s a way to make an emailed report as well, and we take them very seriously.”
