Happy New Year, Relatives!
We hope you all had yourselves a very warm, safe, and grounding holiday and new year. We are excited to start the new year with you all and continue our mission to stop violence against Native women and children in our tribal communities this 2023.
January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. It is a key time for us all as individuals to learn and increase our awareness of human trafficking to identify the signs of trafficking. Human trafficking can happen to anyone, at any time, especially during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within our tribal communities, Native women, cis and trans women, and girls are victimized by human trafficking at rates higher than that of the general population due to factors that include (but are not limited to) poverty or lack of access to work or services on or near reservations. It is also a time for us take these messages to our workplaces, our communities, our schools, our representatives and everywhere else.
January is also National Stalking Awareness Month (NSAM)! Though millions of men, women and non-binary people are stalked every year in the United States, the crime of stalking is often misunderstood, minimized and/or ignored. And stalking often predicts and/or co-occurs with sexual and domestic violence. Stalking is a pattern of behavior directed at a specific person that causes fear. Many stalking victims experience being followed, approached and/or threatened. No matter where you are, or where you come from, everyone has the inherent right to be and feel safe in their own home, community, and online. We all have a role to play in identifying stalking and supporting victims and survivors.
Join us this month as we move against trafficking and stalking in our tribal communities. Follow us as we support national efforts and share information through social media to bring awareness to the underground crime of human trafficking and the crime of stalking that affects our relatives. Community care is tradition.
