WARNING: This is part of a series of stories to be published over the next few weeks that contain potentially trauma-triggering material.
Mary G., whose story as a sex trafficking survivor in Duluth was told by ICTMN in 2012 (Native Girls Are Being Exploited and Destroyed at an Alarming Rate), had terrible problems convincing the administrators of her Section 8 housing to allow her daughter Hope to live with her. Hope, also a trafficking survivor, has convictions for prostitution as well as assaulting an officer during a mental breakdown. Federal housing programs usually don’t admit tenants with histories of drug use or violent crime. Hope was sex trafficked by a brutal pimp from age 14-20. For three years, she cycled in and out of mental health institutions before Mary G. was able to convince authorities to allow Hope to live with her, only to find that housing rules prevented Hope from staying. Eventually, however, Mary G. was able to appeal the decision. When ICTMN connected with Mary G. recently, we found that Hope is now living with her and trying to recover.
RELATED: Surviving for the Love of Hope
Hope is fortunate. During ICTMN’s search for effective solutions to the problems of rehabilitation of sex trafficking survivors in Indian country, the most immediate dilemma faced by most women was finding a safe place to stay, or a place that would have them without placing potentially onerous demands on their psychological state.
None of the women profiled in this series (see Living the Life: Little Girls Don’t Daydream of Being Prostitutes) have ever been asked if they were forced to exchange sex for housing or survival during any of the social, mental or health intake processes. Instead, medical professionals asked about Hope’s and Naivara’s (Battle at Home: Traditional Spirit v. Addiction Spirit) physical symptoms and prescribed cocktails of pills to take away their pain and anxiety. Hope receives visits from a home health care worker who dispenses medication and encourages her to apply for jobs; her mental health counseling focuses on getting her involved with job training. But Hope is utterly broken. She sits in her mother’s living room chain-smoking cigarettes; her gestures suggest she is wrapped in cotton. She wears a look of bewilderment, as though trying to recall something important but very far away.
[For more of this story, written by Mary Anette Pember, go to http://indiancountrytodaymedia...ing-survivors-163514]
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