Its mission is to provide refuge for victims of sex trafficking from all over South Dakota, both Native and non-Native. “A voice in my head told me that we could use the motel to shelter sex trafficking victims,” she recalled. Deer, who was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2014, has focused her scholarship on federal law and Native women victim’s rights for over 25 years. Native women were seen as possessing, like the land, a savage quality and sexuality that appeared to invite both conquest and rape. Native women, for instance, were not surprised to read in the 2007 Amnesty International Report, Maze of Injustice, that one in three Native women and girls will be raped in her lifetime.

Source: The Guardian September 02, 2017 10:52 UTC