Canada - Native Canadian women sold on U.S. ships, researcher says

An American researcher says First Nations women from Thunder Bay, Ont., have been sold on ships in the harbour at Duluth, Minn.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/native-can...esearcher-says-142245653.html?.tsrc=samsungbm

Picard said some of the reasons First Nations women are vulnerable to sex trafficking are all too familiar in indigenous communites.

"The reason that indigenous women and girls are sometimes trafficked has to do with all of these ongoing issues like poverty," she said. "Another one of the large risk factors for indigenous women and girls is the lack of housing ... women will sometimes engage in survival sex, not of their choice, in order to have somewhere to live."

This is very sad and I hope it's stopped and women/children in the area get help to meet their needs.
 
An American researcher says First Nations women from Thunder Bay, Ont., have been sold on ships in the harbour at Duluth, Minn.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/native-can...esearcher-says-142245653.html?.tsrc=samsungbm

I don't doubt that there is truth to this story, but I was expecting to read that First Nations women were being kidnapped and smuggled across the border. After reading the article, it seems like the problem is more about First Nations women getting into prostitution at the shipyards, which certainly is also a problem.

It would be good to hear from a local women's crisis centre worker to get more details on this issue.
 
The masters student at the University of Minnesota Duluth said she has anecdotal reports of women, teenage girls and boys, as well as babies being sold on ships for sex.

"The women and children — and I've even had women talk about a couple of babies brought onto the ships and sold to the men on ships — are being sold or are exchanging sex for alcohol, a place to stay, drugs, money and so forth.," Stark said. "It's quite shocking."

Stark said the sex trade on ships has been going on for generations, and includes Indigenous women from Canada.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thund...en-human-trafficking-ships-united-states.html
 
I don't doubt that there is truth to this story, but I was expecting to read that First Nations women were being kidnapped and smuggled across the border. After reading the article, it seems like the problem is more about First Nations women getting into prostitution at the shipyards, which certainly is also a problem.

It would be good to hear from a local women's crisis centre worker to get more details on this issue.
Folks should read and understand the article a little more deeply than to think it is just survival prostitution which is bad enough IMO As well to hand it off to a "local" crisis center is avoiding the obvious issue here.
 
There is such internal apathy, outright racism and even hatred for First Nations people and women in general that I'm not shocked that this story isn't bigger than it should be. Like the story about Native kids in residential schools being used for experiments and denied healthy food, vitamins and medicine that was uncovered recently by another university researcher. If the government had it's way, there would be complete genocide of First Nations people and the people would remain as museum exhibits and bits of misinformed classroom history (already the case anyway). Instead, the gov. uses assimilation and lack of general care in the hopes the people will just disappear. Apartheid in Canada is real. JMO
 
There is such internal apathy, outright racism and even hatred for First Nations people and women in general that I'm not shocked that this story isn't bigger than it should be. Like the story about Native kids in residential schools being used for experiments and denied healthy food, vitamins and medicine that was uncovered recently by another university researcher. If the government had it's way, there would be complete genocide of First Nations people and the people would remain as museum exhibits and bits of misinformed classroom history (already the case anyway). Instead, the gov. uses assimilation and lack of general care in the hopes the people will just disappear. Apartheid in Canada is real. JMO

When you mention "vitamins", are you referring to that headline a few weeks ago where first nation people were upset because some researcher was trying to determine whether vitamin supplements would help undernourished first nation children? Some children got vitamins and some didn't - as part of the study and control group requirements. First nations were upset that everyone didn't get vitamins even though, at the time, it was not known that a vitamin supplement would help malnourished children? What year was this ... wasn't it in the 1940s? Thankfully, someone was trying to help the situation by trying to find out if vitamin supplements would help (seems like a good hypothesis). They did. How is this bad?

Were first nation children denied healthy food and all other children given healthy food? I don't think so.

I disagree.

It seems that someone in Minn anecdotally knows of someone from Canada that may have gotten on a ship. Who is this person, what is her name and what efforts have been used to locate her?
 
Folks should read and understand the article a little more deeply than to think it is just survival prostitution which is bad enough IMO As well to hand it off to a "local" crisis center is avoiding the obvious issue here.

I have several friends who work with First Nations women in the crisis shelters here in Northern Ontario, and I respect their knowledge, experince and inside information about First Nations women's concerns such as this. They are the To-Go-To people, the first responders for women who are homeless, in poverty, in abusive relationships, or otherwise needing support.

We aren't handing off the problem, but rather looking for understanding of the issues.
 
When you mention "vitamins", are you referring to that headline a few weeks ago where first nation people were upset because some researcher was trying to determine whether vitamin supplements would help undernourished first nation children? Some children got vitamins and some didn't - as part of the study and control group requirements. First nations were upset that everyone didn't get vitamins even though, at the time, it was not known that a vitamin supplement would help malnourished children? What year was this ... wasn't it in the 1940s? Thankfully, someone was trying to help the situation by trying to find out if vitamin supplements would help (seems like a good hypothesis). They did. How is this bad?

Were first nation children denied healthy food and all other children given healthy food? I don't think so.

I disagree.

It seems that someone in Minn anecdotally knows of someone from Canada that may have gotten on a ship. Who is this person, what is her name and what efforts have been used to locate her?

I create a thread for this story. I'll try and find it. Yes, it's the story from the 40s. How is this bad? It's obvious.
 
People can respond to this topic at the thread r.e. experiments on Native children.

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216432"]Canadians starved Native children in the name of science - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community[/ame]
 
I have several friends who work with First Nations women in the crisis shelters here in Northern Ontario, and I respect their knowledge, experince and inside information about First Nations women's concerns such as this. They are the To-Go-To people, the first responders for women who are homeless, in poverty, in abusive relationships, or otherwise needing support.

We aren't handing off the problem, but rather looking for understanding of the issues.

That isn't quite what I mean, I give crisis centers every bit of kudos, I have used them and given to them. I thinks this crisis falls far above their level is what I meant. Societal changes have to occur as well as governmental changes was my point. Whether we ever see this is happening is another thing. IMO
 
That isn't quite what I mean, I give crisis centers every bit of kudos, I have used them and given to them. I thinks this crisis falls far above their level is what I meant. Societal changes have to occur as well as governmental changes was my point. Whether we ever see this is happening is another thing. IMO


I agree with both of you :)

I do think there is a much larger problem here. One is longterm poverty - that in itself leads to all kinds of substantial problems. I think the other potential problem is whether or not anyone is paying enough attention to the crimes that might be occurring.
 
I create a thread for this story. I'll try and find it. Yes, it's the story from the 40s. How is this bad? It's obvious.

Studies have been done on people for a long, long time. That is how new drugs are tested even today. Test subjects come from all walks of life. Shouldn't the children that received vitamin supplements (as part of a scientific hypothesis that they were good for people) well before the benefits were understood be appreciative and thankful, not upset that the control group didn't receive the same supplements? Birth control pills were tested on women in South America. Afterward, the pills were released to the North American public. Should we conclude that women in South America deserve an apology because they were the first to have access to birth control?

Times were different in the 1940s and the 1960s. Do the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and descendants, for all time, of scientists have to continue to apologize for something that was normal at the time and which did not harm anyone? Agent Orange testing was a whole other story, but that wasn't tested on first nation people. A different study group was used.

In terms of "anecdotal" information about an unnamed person, perhaps from Canada, perhaps getting on a boat, ... it seems like a really wild claim. Shouldn't scientists and researchers validate their information before it is published?

The perception of victimization is not the same "grounded in validated facts" victimization.
 
In terms of "anecdotal" information about an unnamed person, perhaps from Canada, perhaps getting on a boat, ... it seems like a really wild claim. Shouldn't scientists and researchers validate their information before it is published?

The perception of victimization is not the same "grounded in validated facts" victimization.

The person making the claim was a masters student, not a scientist (you need to have finished your Ph.D. to make that claim). Also, what she was reporting was a story told to her by a single source. Unless that source was participating in selling babies to slave traders for sex, she too heard it from someone else. In other words, urban legend.

Typically the people who "study" social issues of this sort are also activists themselves and are hardly an unbiased party. They will accept anything told to them as "the truth" without questioning, provided it fits with their preconceived notion of what is going on.
 
This certainly accounts for some women disappearing and never seen again. More than one family is now coming forward with the same story - fwiw at the moment I'm giving it credit as true.

This reminded of the BC saga.
 

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