Advocates Focused on Anti-Trafficking Efforts Talk About Next Steps
CeMarr Peterson, Artika Roller, Beth Holger, Lakeisha Lee, and Kaleena Burks were among the attendees at a gathering about anti-trafficking efforts
February 4, 2025 — At a gathering of trafficking advocates and survivors last week, a panel discussion focused on the issue of missing Black women and girls that — as with indigenous victims — tend to be misunderstood, underreported, or ignored by law enforcement. Many victims are mislabeled as runaways rather than missing persons. Some dismissal reflects stereotypes and an adultification bias, with the presumption that Black girls are more sexualized and capable of protecting themselves from predators compared to white girls.
Artika Roller, executive director of Cornerstone, noted a report by the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality that shares data showing that adults view Black girls, especially between the ages of 5 and 14, as less innocent than their white peers. This leads to the biased view that Black girls need less nurturing, protection, support, and comfort, and are more independent and knowledgeable about sex at a young age. With this dehumanization and bias, when Black girls are missing there tends to be less urgency about finding them, or even charging predators who traffic or assault them.
One panelist asked, why would anyone assume a young girl would willingly leave her hometown? She said she was in a meeting where a group of people saw the numbers of Black youth who were described as runaways and did not connect the dots to realize they likely were victims of exploitation and trafficking.
Solutions
from “Girlhood Interrupted” report by Georgetown University
The solution, panelists noted, is to increase education, legislative support, and collective community action, as well as holding media and law enforcement accountable for misinformation and lack of interest.
Kaleena Burkes, director of the new Minnesota office focused on Murdered and Missing Black Women and Girls, said a priority is to create a system to collect and store data in order to track the issue. Because of the harm that tends to come to Black people from law enforcement, she added, there is also under-reporting of missing girls that needs to be addressed.
A 2018 federal law established the Ashanti Alert Act, a nationwide system to help law enforcement, the media, and the public quickly become aware of missing adults who might be endangered. It was named after Ashanti Billie, a 19-year-old woman who went missing in 2017 and was found dead in North Carolina two weeks later; she was too old for an Amber Alert and too young for a Silver Alert.
Roller also noted the importance of taking care of each other. “We know that this current [White House] administration is trying to choke out every program and every resource to do this important work. We have a long four years ahead of us, so we have to stay strong. We have to address this epidemic of missing Black women and girls with a collective response. We have to call on everybody to stand up and make sure that we’re heard and that we get the resources that we need.
“It was collective action to get the [Murdered and Missing Black Women and Girls] office,” she added. “Many people in this room showed up every week to make sure that happened. Some legislators were saying we should pour that money into the police department — give them more money to do the work they were not doing. So, we had to come together across sectors, across disciplines, [to get the investment].”
A sexual assault response team of advocates and others are meeting monthly, creating protocol about how to respond when people are victimized. “Then we can turn to law enforcement to do what they need to do, and courts to do what they need to do [including to] not buy into the narratives that our young women are [promiscuous],” Roller continued. “We need to make sure that we are protecting our children at all costs. We’ve made a lot of changes in our community, like the Safe Harbor law. We know how to do this work. We’ve done it before, over and over again.”
Resources
Story about “When Black Girls Go Missing”
One-hour documentary: “When Black Girls Go Missing”
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