September 5th, 2021
Faith Over Fear Newsletter
My first blog entry of project 'Love Justice Alaska'. I spent a week up north; I just returned from my first week on the job; it was beautiful, insightful, impactful, and a little bit scary! This last week was about meeting the Love Justice team, understanding what positions I play, meeting our local champions, and beginning to understand why Alaska was chosen as our first domestic pilot.
I visited Alaska once years ago on business in January and didn’t get to see much of anything except I do recall fascination at throwing a cup of coffee in the air and watching it fall to the ground in chunks. This trip we had enough time to take a couple of scenic drives with the goal of “touching a glacier!”
Our international director is from South Africa and the scenery demanded an audience. I also got to meet our Director of North America, https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewfennig/ who has paved the way for this domestic inauguration and our success.
That was my biggest thrill; understanding that I am just a small piece of the puzzle that needs to click in to complete the picture. Andrew and team have set up relationships with the airport Chief of Police, state officials, and the community homes for aftercare. All I have to do is ‘show up’, figuratively and literally. I could write a post on these people and take up all of your attention but I will summarize by saying that this project is propped up with people who are dedicating their hearts, strengths, and resources to fight human trafficking. You can’t buy that kind of support… and that’s a good thing because we are all about the, “do much with little”.
Let’s dig into the “why” we chose Alaska because I now have full understanding of why 45% of domestically trafficked Alaskan people are Native. I honestly didn’t know that much about our 49th state other than visions of salmon, bears, moose, and snow. And the fact that one can see Russia from their porch. (That’s actually not a stretch - in one area it’s only 2.5 miles away and when the lake freezes you could theoretically walk it.) This trip I learned about the indigenous peoples and why they are number one for human trafficking. It gets a little dark now so buckle up or bail out.
In 1867, well before AK became part of the USA in 1959, Secretary of State William Seward struck a deal to purchase the Alaska territory from Russia for about 7.2 Million - all 586,412 square miles of it. In 1878 a missionary group opened a school for Native children with the idea that learning English and receiving formal education and certain health benefits would be a good thing and for a while, it was. Had it stayed on track I likely wouldn’t be going to Alaska to save children from slavery. But as so often is the case, evil creeps in, takes over, and destroys. From the 1900s to the 1970s Alaska Natives were taken from rural communities that lacked either primary or secondary schools and sent to boarding schools run by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), by private churches or, later, by Alaska’s state government. Understand, not everything was bad and lots of good things came out of these schools including learned skills, friendships, and opportunity. The bad that brewed in the dark is wreaking generational havoc still today.
Physical and sexual abuse has long lasting affects even in short term scenarios. When it’s poured on day after day as a matter of routine, the damage can become generational. I heard a few anecdotal stories about the Wrangell Institute, then I got a book called, Windows To The Land, from an Alaskan native and today I watched “Indian Horse” on Netflix. They tell the same devastating story. Defining our terms, a Native Alaskan is a person born in Alaska. An Alaskan Native is an indigenous person. Indigenous children were required to report to the institute or taken from their homes. When they arrived they were stripped naked and their parkas, mukluks, and any other belongings were incinerated in front of them. They were sprayed down, deloused amongst the tears, and their braids cut off and their heads shaved. Then the beatings began. They were beaten with heavy leather belts for speaking their native tongue or looking too native. One of their punishments was, “the gauntlet”. The offender was stripped naked and had to run through 50 to 100 boys while they beat him with a belt. This was used to turn the children on one another and proved to be effective. One of the elders recalled that two nurses were feared for requiring the 12-year-olds to, “make love to them”. The dentist would play a cartoon for the kids while checking their teeth and systematically fondling them.
The hits just kept coming. Between the years of 1949 and 1987, nine Catholic priests were credibly accused of sexual abuse. Many of the children who lived in the villages of St. Michael and Stebbins in the late 1960s and 1970s were sexually assaulted by Rev. George Endal and laypersons Anton Smario and Joseph Lundowski which has ended in a lawsuit. These aren’t the only reasons an entire culture would be soaked in sexual assault today but it certainly starts to make sense. We know that victims of sexual abuse carry on that legacy and it virtually becomes part of the community fabric. A native woman is assaulted every 18 hours and nearly 100% of the kids are sexually abused. Pair this with poverty, alcoholism and/or drug abuse and you have the perfect storm for human trafficking. It’s not uncommon for a child to be pimped out for the family to have a place to stay or for an uncle to offer a bottle of whisky for a night with the niece. Bring in the male-dominant industries of fishing, hunting, oil and gas and the recipe for human trafficking is fully baked.
That’s the gravity of what we’re dealing with and yet I am so full of hope and promise after spending a week in the community. Alaskan natives have distinct cultures that bring so much tradition and depth to everything they do and as is the case with all cultures, there are good and there are ignorant. The good love their families with fierce compassion and dedicate their lives to their survival. The ignorant need deliverance. The Alaska Native story is one of endurance that has been tested time and time again. Proven by developing ways to survive and thrive in the harshest American environment; overcoming enslavement and disease during the Russian and U.S. trade era; adapting to statehood; and fighting to restore rights and reestablish sovereignty. Human trafficking is an obstacle that can and will be conquered, one child at a time.
Now that you know I hope it helps in understanding that this will not go away by itself; it requires a fight. Love Justice has the right data, the right processes, and the right team to make an impact. We have now intercepted over 25,000 people in other countries. I cannot step into the ring until I raise my own budget. I am 100% self supporting and Alaska is one of the most expensive places to live in the US. I am ready, willing, and able to get to Alaska and start the work but I need financial support. Consider this: all donations are tax deductible, 100% of your support will go to this project, and I WILL make a difference. It's the end of the year - time to contribute. This is an opportunity to be a part of something so much bigger than “us”. Please consider a recurring contribution but we need donations of any size. If you have already contributed - THANK YOU! You’re helping to stop human slavery. Faith over fear - we will win. www.lovejustice.ngo/our-team/sabrina
https://iseralaska.org/static/legacy_publication_links/boardingschoolfinal.pdf