“This is not just an American Indian and Alaska Native issue; this is a people issue.”

Know your community, build community, and do community organizing. Participate in marches and rallies. Share fliers and posters of individuals missing in your local area. Connect with local media, Tribal newspapers, community newsletters, television, and radio stations. Work with system providers (e.g., law enforcement, prosecution, homeless shelters). Look for those community agencies connecting with victims of human trafficking or those who are missing. Homeless shelters are big partners in this work because homelessness makes an individual more vulnerable to human trafficking. There is an opportunity to train homeless shelter staff on human trafficking indicators and what they can do in this space.

Involve a victim advocate with experience in working in this area. Every state has a law enforcement training facility. Advocate for training on human trafficking, child sex trafficking, MMIP cases are required law enforcement trainings. Without training, law enforcement is not able to identify human trafficking. Once they know the signs of human trafficking, they are more aware of these signs in their work. Provide case studies, scenarios, and help them open their perspective to this issue. Implement a victim perspective in any law enforcement training so they have a trauma-informed perspective. This exploitation often starts as a child or teen; this is helpful information to give law enforcement working with individuals in the sex industry and escort service. 

It is not easy work. It is very rewarding but hard mentally, spiritually, and physically. Education is another way to get into MMIP work. Learn about the issue, make connections, and identify where you can offer your skills. Find trainings and courses to educate yourself and use what you learn to share information with others. Assess services, needs/gaps, and information available to your community. Once the needs and gaps are recognized, you can target your services, training, and efforts. Use conversations and awareness efforts to educate on the indicators and how domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking are connected. People will start recognizing indicators and seeing it in their everyday activities, then they will start talking about it. Network with stakeholders and other organizations who provide services at the intersections to see if they can help with resources or outreach. For example, will the local business office allow outreach signage in their public restrooms or on their lobby reader boards? Can you build a relationship with a local hotel to train their staff? Can you email them materials and missing posters to send to all the hotels in their networks? Email them relevant news articles or resources about the issues in their field as they become available. Lastly, do the job you want to do. Volunteer, be an ally, amplify survivor voices, share information, and talk, talk, and talk about it. Whatever your employment or job, see if there is a role for advocacy and awareness in your place of work. No matter what that is; there is something for everyone to do to raise awareness. Share the knowledge you bring to new places. There is a lot of trust building that needs to happen as you do this work and it takes time to build relationships.

Education on the issue is key. Understand the issue of MMIP and human trafficking so when you encounter victims, they do not have to educate you. Know the cultural resources in your community and build relationships with those programs. Ask survivors where they would like to go for their healing. If you are reaching out to community individuals to offer cultural healing, vet those individuals to make sure they are places where survivors will be safe. Know the difference between being culturally sensitive and cultural appropriations. Sometimes culturally sensitive can actually be appropriating culture, and that is not helpful for survivors. Seek out cultural sensitivity training so you know the differences. Always listen to survivors and follow their lead in what services they seek. Don’t put people in a box where all survivors need this type of service. We are all different. Not all Native people will want the same thing.

Two-Spirit is a direct translation of the Ojibwe term, Niizh manidoowag, Two-Spirited or Two-Spirit, is usually used to indicate a person whose body simultaneously houses a masculine spirit and a feminine spirit. Male Two-Spirits were considered a "third gender," and female Two-Spirits were considered a "fourth gender.” The term “Two-Spirit” emerged in 1990 at the third annual inter-Tribal Native American/First Nations Gay/Lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Canada. The term Two-Spirit was created for Native American individuals who wanted to take a step back from the mainstream language of LGBTQIA+ and connect specifically to culture and spirituality. It was also a way to claim their Native identity and their roles in community. The term Two-Spirit is a universal term used across Indigenous communities. Remember, the term “Two-Spirit” is a concept that was created by Native people and should only be used by Native people who identify. Also, remember some Indigenous communities may not use or identify with the word Two-Spirit because of their own unique cultural beliefs embracing Two-Spirit or Native LGBTQIA+ relatives. Before colonization, Two-Spirit and Native LGBTQIA+ people were looked up to as “Spiritual Beings” because of the role they played in community. They were considered healers or medicine persons, parents of orphaned children, conveyors of oral traditions and songs (Yuki), foretellers of the future (Winnebago, Oglala Lakota), name-givers of children or adults (Oglala Lakota, Tohono O'odham), nurses during war expeditions, potters (Zuni, Navajo, Tohono O'odham), matchmakers (Cheyenne, Omaha, Oglala Lakota), makers of feather regalia for dances (Maidu), and special role players in the Sun Dance (Crow, Hidatsa, Oglala Lakota). Today, they are looked upon as “sexual beings,” and frowned upon. Ask someone who is Native, and who you think identifies, “How do you identify?”