On the docks of Duluth, Minn., it’s called “working the boats.”

It means working as a prostitute, sometimes shuffling from bunk to bunk, selling sex to sailors on ships working the Great Lakes.

Some prostitutes are as young as 10, fleeing broken homes in the U.S. and Canada. The average age of entry into the sex trade is 14, according to a 2011 report titled Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota. And a disproportionate number of Great Lakes sex slaves are impoverished First Nations women and girls.

Co-author Christine Stark recently told the CBC that on this issue, “there is a very strong link between Thunder Bay and Duluth.”

The report describes hearing of “Native women being trafficked to and from reservations and urban areas” and goes on to say that “92 per cent of women interviewed wanted to escape prostitution.”

The Canadian Women’s Foundation is working on providing that way out, through an ongoing task force on the trafficking of women and children in Canada.

Project director Diane Redsky explains that there are “specific vulnerabilities for aboriginal women and girls.”

“They are definitely targeted by traffickers,” she says of First Nations women. “It’s not surprising that Thunder Bay would be a city (portrayed) in that way.”

One of the goals of the task force is to help them escape violent, exploitative situations, she says, adding that housing and education opportunities can go a long way toward fighting trafficking.

But it’s a tough battle. Great Lakes sex traffic between Canada and the U.S. has gone on for generations and has its roots in poverty and discrimination, according to the Garden of Truth report, which draws from interviews with 105 aboriginal women conducted by the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition and Prostitution Research & Education.

Though noting the paucity of statistics, the report says up to 10 women and girls were prostituted by three traffickers on ships out of the port of Duluth in 2002 alone. The women may disappear onto the lakes for months at a time.

“Intergenerational harms persist, in that some girls whose mothers were prostituted on the boats were conceived during prostitution,” it says.

More than two-thirds of the women interviewed had family members who attended native residential schools, now notorious for abuse and neglect, and 77 per cent of the women interviewed had used homeless shelters.

It’s hard to know how widespread the Great Lakes sex trade is because victims are often reluctant to report crimes, says Sgt. Shelley Garr, of the Ontario Provincial Police headquarters in Thunder Bay.

“Human trafficking victims are often from extremely vulnerable populations,” Garr says, adding the OPP tries to work with the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency to combat human trafficking. Still, it’s a trade that often flies under the radar.

Chris Adams, a spokesperson for the Thunder Bay police department, said he was unaware of sex traffic on ships between his city and Duluth.

The Garden of Truth findings are troubling but not surprising to Canadians who have studied abuse and prostitution in First Nations communities.

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That report supports a 2008 study by the Minnesota legislature that suggested Duluth has become a major hub for human trafficking because of the presence of a sizeable First Nations population and an international port.

A 2010 Duluth police report also describes the city as “a destination for trafficking victims who are brought on board ships for exploitation by the crew.”

A 2011 study for the economics department at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, found the average age of prostitutes entering the sex trade was 14, although some girls began as young as 10.

Prostitutes can generate $280,000 each in annual profits for pimps, Redsky says. “The financial gain is to the trafficker.”

She wonders: “Who is on these ships in the first place, and why is this allowed to happen for generations?”

According to the Garden of Truth report, organized crime groups, on and off aboriginal lands, play “a significant role” in trafficking native women. “Youth gangs in Indian country are proliferating.”

Homelessness and a lack of educational options help explain why some First Nations women are drawn into prostitution, said Kezia Picard, director of policy and research at the Ontario Native Women’s Association.

She notes that some 600 Canadian First Nations women are missing, many of them thought to have been murdered, including some who worked in the sex trade.

It’s not surprising the Minnesota report mentions a sex trade involving the Port of Thunder Bay, Picard said.

“It’s always transportation hubs where these things are more visible.”

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