Overcoming Barriers to Justice: Prosecuting Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence, Stalking, and Human Trafficking Involving Victims from American Indian and Alaska Native Communities
On August 19, 2024 AEquitas hosted a web based panel, Overcoming Barriers to Justice: Prosecuting Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence, Stalking, and Human Trafficking Involving Victims from American Indian and Alaska Native Communities. A copy of the materials can be downloaded here, and the bios of the presenters can be found at the bottom of this email. A video of the panel can be accessed from the AEquitas YouTube channel by following this link.
This panel explored the ways in which bias against survivors from American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities affects the investigation and prosecution of sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and human trafficking.
Panelists addressed the following topics:
Effects of inequalities and challenges that survivors from AIAN communities uniquely face as victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and human trafficking.
Barriers to reporting crimes, such as bias and stereotypes held by law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and jurors that can translate into disparate outcomes for victims through unfair credibility determinations.
Impact of bias on case assessments of the likelihood of conviction, and collateral consequences on a victim’s ability to seek healing and justice.
Strategies for prosecutors’ offices to enhance justice for AIAN victims by engaging in cultural humility, improving training, and ensuring accountability reinforced by data.
AEquitas hosted another web-based panel on Thursday, September 5th, Ensuring Justice: Confronting Bias and Strategies for Prosecuting Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence, Stalking, and Human Trafficking Committed Against Survivors from Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Island Communities, co-hosted by AEquitas and the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence. For more information, please visit aequitasresource.org/trainings.
Panelist Bios
Jennifer Long | Chief Executive Officer at AEquitas
Jennifer Long is the CEO and co-founder of AEquitas, a nonprofit with the mission of improving the quality of justice in sexual violence—including image based sexual abuse-, intimate partner violence, stalking and human trafficking cases by developing, evaluating, and refining prosecution practices. She began her career as an Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia, where she prosecuted cases involving adult and child physical and sexual abuse as a member of the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Unit. Jennifer joined the National Center on the Prosecution of Violence Against Women as a Senior Attorney in 2004 and became its Director in 2007. She serves on several Advisory and Editorial Boards and teach prosecuting sexual violence at Georgetown University Law Center.
Descriptions of AEquitas and its Initiatives are available at: AEquitasResource.org, theRSVP.org, JustExits.org, InnovativeProsecutionSolutions.org, and StalkingAwareness.org.
Vicki Ybanez, MPA | Executive Director at Red Wind Consulting, Inc.
Ms. Ybanez, Diné, Apache and Mexican, has been working to end violence against American Indian/Alaskan Native women for 40 years. She has a depth of experience working closely with Tribes in developing and implementing a range of responses to violence against indigenous women, has conducted numerous on-site visits, facilitated sessions and training for tribes over the past 25 years. She is experienced working inter-tribally as well as within a tribe’s local culture. She developed and is the Executive Director of Red Wind Consulting, Inc. (2005-present) coordinating and providing Tribal Training and Technical Assistance for recipients of the Tribal Governments Program for the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) as the Tribal Governments Program Comprehensive TA Provider; working with Tribal college and university campuses developing holistic responses to sexual assault; and responses for urban Native programs. Red Wind also operates the Haseya Advocate Program, an urban Native program in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Ms. Ybanez formerly was the Executive Director and founder of American Indian Community Housing Organization, and urban Native organization in Duluth, Minnesota serving survivors of domestic and sexual violence. She also developed Red Wind’s National Tribal Advocate Center providing 40-hour Domestic Abuse Training Institutes and 40-hour Sexual Assault Training Institutes. She developed the curriculum for each training and serves as lead faculty.
Ms. Ybanez has her master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota, Duluth Campus with a Major in Economics and Minor in Political Science. Ms. Ybanez was published in three anthologies in 2008: Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence; Sharing Our Stories of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence; and Birthed from Scorched Hearts.
Leslie A. Hagen | National Indian Country Training Coordinator at U.S. Department of Justice
Leslie A. Hagen serves as the Department of Justice’s first National Indian Country Training Coordinator. In this position, she is responsible for planning, developing and coordinating training in a broad range of matters relating to the administration of justice in Indian Country. Previously, Hagen served as the Native American Issues Coordinator for the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. In that capacity, she served as EOUSA’s principal legal advisor on all matters pertaining to Native American issues, among other law enforcement program areas; provides management support to the United States Attorneys’ Offices (USAOs); and coordinates and resolves legal issues. Hagen is also a liaison and technical assistance provider to Justice Department components and the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on Native American Issues. She served as an AUSA in the Western District of Michigan, staff attorney with the Civil Legal Justice Project for the Michigan Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, a Violence Against Women Training Attorney for the Prosecuting Attorneys Associate of Michigan. Leslie also served as the Prosecuting Attorney for Huron County, Michigan for two terms, an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for Midland County, Michigan and a Prehearing Division Attorney for the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Nicole Matthews | Executive Director at Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition
Nicole Matthews is a descendent of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, and is the Executive Director for Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition; a statewide Tribal Coalition and National Tribal Technical Assistance Provider, addressing sexual violence and sex trafficking against Native people.
Nicole was one of five researchers who interviewed 105 Native women used in prostitution and trafficking for their report: Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota. Nicole has served on numerous boards, committees, and Task Forces. She is a TedX Speaker, and a National and International Speaker on sexual violence and sex trafficking, and the intersections of racism and oppression.
Nicole’s most important role is being a mother, grandmother, sister, auntie, and matriarch.
Jeri Moomaw | Executive Director at Innovations Human Trafficking Collaborative
A Shoshone/Cree human trafficking survivor who had once been counted among Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons, Jeri transformed her lived experience – her trauma, her rage, her pain – into the positive vision that has become a national model for collective action in seeking justice and a better life for survivors of human trafficking. Initially operating from the trunk of her VW in 2016, Jeri grew Innovations HTC to become a leading force in providing safety and support for human trafficking survivors, training first responders and frontline workers, advocating for policies to end trafficking, and building a network among Tribal, state, and local leaders committed to elevating and addressing trafficking and MMIP. In addition to her work at IHTC, Jeri has served as a consultant for the Department of Homeland Security Blue Campaign and has served as a subject matter expert on human trafficking with the Office of Victim of Crime and Office on Trafficking in Persons. Jeri has been recognized by the Department of Justice for her life’s work in improving the lives of human trafficking survivors. With more than two decades of anti-trafficking experience, Jeri continues to serve vulnerable and high-risk youth and adults by providing trauma -informed advocacy; case management; response protocol development; program development & oversight; and creating curriculum & training content to end commercial sexual exploitation, human trafficking, MMIP, and violence against people.
Troy Morley | Assistant U.S. Attorney
Assistant US Attorney Troy Morely is the missing and murdered indigenous persons liaison for the Great Plains and Tribal Liaison for the District of South Dakota. As an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Morley's outreach to tribal communities has been pivotal in strengthening the District of South Dakota’s ties with tribal law enforcement officers, tribal courts, tribal social service agencies, and tribal decision makers. He has built bridges and promoted cooperation among all levels of Federal, State, and Tribal law enforcement.
Morley joined the U.S. Attorney’s office in Pierre, South Dakota, in May of 2012, and for over five years, he prosecuted violent crimes occurring on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. In June 2017, he transitioned to similar work on the Crow Creek and Lower Brule reservations.
Morley became the District's Tribal Liaison in March 2015, and in that role has had a deep and holistic impact on tribal communities throughout South Dakota. He has helped form working groups with state governments (both North Dakota and South Dakota) to implement reentry plans for individuals returning to the community after incarceration. He has worked closely with tribal officials on pilot programs to exercise special domestic violence jurisdiction. Morley also serves as a mentor in a special program he developed for the Pierre Indian Learning Center, regularly coaching students about how to succeed in life and avoid bullying behavior. Morley has been a key voice in discussions surrounding the selection of Special Assistant United States Attorneys assigned to four of the state’s nine reservations: Standing Rock, Sisseton (Sissa’ ten) Wahpeton (Waa’-pe-ten), Flandreau (flan’-drough), and Rosebud. His partnerships have also helped identify cases leading to successful federal prosecutions. For instance, Morley’s work with a Tribal SAUSA has identified repeat domestic abusers, leading to an appreciable uptick in the prosecution of habitual domestic violence offenders harming women and children in our district.
Kelly Stoner | Victim Advocacy Legal Specialist at Tribal Law Policy Institute
Kelly Stoner serves as TLPI’s Victim Advocacy Legal Specialist. For over twenty years, Kelly taught at law schools in North Dakota School and Oklahoma teaching classes and directing clinical programs focused on American Indian/ Tribal Law and Domestic Violence related classes. Kelly has eight years of experience as a Judge for the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and frequently publishes and on the issue of violence against American Indian women and children
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