Port city secrets: human trafficking hiding in Duluth

[kestrel9]

"It's [human trafficking] been running quiet for a long, long, long, long time” -Lori Paul (CommunicationsDevelopment Specialist, Breaking Free Inc.)

https://lakevoicenews.org/port-city-sec ... 21fd819f70


Minnesota is the 13th largest center for human trafficking. Duluth is far from being exempt to contributing to the trafficking operations. Given that Duluth is a port city that consistently has ships leaving and arriving at the port, this environmental recipe is ideal into making the Twin Ports a target for trafficking.

In 2007, 33-year old James Redd opened “The Hip Hop Candy Shop”, which he masqueraded as a recording studio and candy store. Redd promised girls new shoes, clothes, haircuts and manicures if they’d work at strip clubs, have sex with him or other men of his choosing. At least four indigenous girls between the ages of 13 and 17 were being bought and sold for sex at the store. ...Lisa Pollak is the social services department coordinator for Fond Du Lac Indian Reservation (30 miles from Duluth). She’s worked with dozens of girls who have been lured by scouts, looking for girls at schools or malls, only to be sold into prostitution. Some girls, Pollak said, are as young as 10 and 12 years old."

(More examples of cases in Duluth link)

"According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, since 2007 to 2019, there has been 561more cases of human trafficking with 2,384 more contacts. In 2010 online sales of minor girls being sold for sex in Minnesota increased by 55% in a six month period. more stats

"“The ports — it’s a problem. You have all of that access with ships,” Paul said. “You’ve got…61 that goes all the way up into Canada, Thunder Bay, but you have all these little inlets like Grand Portage that’s another location connected to the Duluth area.” Paul said port cities are always a hotspot for human trafficking such as Seattle, New Orleans, and New York City."

49 new human trafficking cases were reported in 2019 in Minnesota with 133 contacts.

"The indeginous community are especially at risk, as they are more vulnerable to human trafficking. The Duluth harbor was deemed “notorious among Native people as a site for the trafficking of Native women from northern reservations. In an ongoing project focused on the trafficking of Native women on ships in Duluth, it was found that the activity includes international transport of Native women and teens, including First Nation women and girls brought down from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to be sold on the ships and in Duluth and Superior. Native women, teen girls and boys, and even babies have been sold for sex on the ships.” link

[brwn]

https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/sex ... ne-workers


those harbours are tightly controlled. You risk your life walking around there. Everybody is bribed