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SunCloud-777 OP t1_j17puha wrote

  • Native Hawaiian women and girls experience disproportionate levels of violence, inequities that have long been insufficiently addressed, new research shows.

  • In particular, sexual exploitation remains a serious issue, with 43% of sex trafficking cases involving Native Hawaiian girls trafficked in Waikīkī, O‘ahu, according to a report from the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, a statewide government agency.

  • A law enforcement operation targeting child sex trafficking showed that 38% of people arrested through the effort and accused of soliciting sex online from a 13-year-old were military personnel.

  • “We have over two dozen arrests out of just a handful of operations of active-duty military personnel. … What that also indicates to me is that the predation that involves soldiers preying on children appears to be widespread,” said Khara Jabola-Carolus, a co-chair of the Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women and Girls Task Force, which released the report. “That should be shocking and alarming and cause for urgency.”

  • researchers compiled and examined data about a number of issues across state and community agencies in Hawaii, including domestic and sexual violence and exploitation. It found that the average profile of a missing child report processed through the state’s Missing Child Center Hawaii is 15 years old, female, Native Hawaiian and missing from O‘ahu. In the past two years, Native Hawaiians made up 84% of the 37 cases publicly reported through missing children’s center.

  • In looking at other inequities, the report found that more than one-third of adults who experience physical violence by intimate partners in Hawaii are Indigenous, according to 2013 statistics. And 16.5% of all high school students in the state who reported having been sexually abused by anyone in the last 12 months were Native Hawaiian females, higher than among females of any other racial group, the report said, citing 2019 data.

  • Jabola-Carolus said many in the Indigenous community have long called for the armed forces to leave the islands. Research has shown the negative impact military presence in the area has had on Indigenous communities, from health to economics.

  • “It’s time for the Department of Defense and Congress to revisit Base Realignment and Closure in Hawaii,” Jabola-Carolus said.

  • Inequities for Native women and girls are also intertwined with the failures of those with legislative power to recognize such Native Hawaiian issues, the report said. The Violence Against Women Act increased funding for domestic violence and sexual assault services, but services allocated to specifically help Native Hawaiian survivors of gender-based violence were inadvertently excluded from the funding. Legislation introduced by Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, last month would rectify that.

  • data continues to be limited, researchers wrote. And to comprehend the full scale and severity of the violence against Native Hawaiian women and girls, better data collection that centers on “key experts” — including survivors with lived experience, social workers and therapists — is needed, the report said.

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financequestionsacct t1_j17qbng wrote

The article says 38% of the alleged offenders in a sting operation were military personnel. That's despicable.

I attended a military school on the base in the area. Some of my best memories are of learning indigenous history at school. Several times a month, Hawai'i Native women would come to our classroom to teach us words and phrases from the Hawaiian language and do arts and crafts with us and teach us about Kamehameha and Queen Liliuokalani. I remember they were very gentle and kind women and I looked forward to their lessons; it was really a bright spot for us.

No one deserves to be mistreated like that.

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Ombremermaid t1_j17skhd wrote

Shouldn’t be surprised they were always like that 🤯

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Littlemeggie t1_j17ub25 wrote

Thirty-eight percent of people arrested through the operation and accused of soliciting sex online from a 13-year-old were military personnel, the report said.

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SmylesLee77 t1_j17v023 wrote

Unfortunately this is a problem with Native Americans in every State. Look at the disappearing girls on various Reservations and how zero investigation occurs!

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SunCloud-777 OP t1_j17xq0r wrote

Yes, it needs to be acknowledged, not just by individuals but also by the federal government, for healing to happen.

something similar to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the past and present hurts and crimes committed against all indigenous groups.

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SpaceTabs t1_j17zmb2 wrote

"“It’s time for the Department of Defense and Congress to revisit Base Realignment and Closure in Hawaii,” Jabola-Carolus said, referring to the congressionally authorized process the Defense Department has used to reorganize its base structure."

This is completely delirious. This article starts by examining a serious issue then goes off the rails by talking about something from fantasy land. Congress is not going to close strategically vital bases because of prostitution/trafficking. There is no doubt the native community has suffered, but stuff like this is stupid and alienating. I don't see a single other community in the 330+ million people talking about solving a prostitution/trafficking in this way.

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bassacre t1_j1805n7 wrote

The title should read 38% of military in hawaii are pedophiles.

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Gorelab t1_j181229 wrote

Wrong way around. 38% of people arrested were military, rather than 38% of the military was found to be doing so. It's still very much out of size with the presence though.

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Koolmidx t1_j18aaqm wrote

Timesuck Podcast did an episode on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women around a month ago. Not sure they covered Hawaii.

Edit: autocorrect

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boxer_dogs_dance t1_j18ixmu wrote

California just instituted what they call a feather alert system for missing indigenous people. Modeled on the Amber alert system. I'm not thrilled with the name of the program but they are making an effort to respond to the problem.

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N3UROTOXINsRevenge t1_j18p3kq wrote

I think you can drop “Hawiian”. This happens to native women everywhere. It’s fucked.

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Legeto t1_j18t1g9 wrote

I’d be interested in what the actual number is. I’ve actually went to basic training with a guy who was caught in a sting operation like that and most times I only see it being 20 people at most.

Absolute piece of shit though and I am pissed how the entire situation was handled. His wife just had a kid and killed herself because she found him talking to girls online. Then he went to meet up with a kid (actually a cop) in Florida a couple weeks after her funeral. The dude should have went to jail but got a slap on the fucking wrist and did it again and got an other than honorable discharge. Should have gone to fucking Leavenworth.

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contra_account t1_j19b4rf wrote

This is a very disjointed report.

Trying to repatriate land back from the federal government under the guise of military service members commiting acts of sexual violence is a strange tactic. Especially considering that this report just inundates you with unrelated sexual violence facts. The only fact that they repeat is the specific operation that targeted online predation of children in Hawaii of which over 30% was active duty military. All of the other facts they provide are not in the context of military service members commiting these acts. They also misstated the percentage of Native Hawaiians in their report using the same data I linked earlier.

I agree that violence against women should be stopped, but I don't agree with using that violence and presenting it in a disingenuous manner to push a political agenda.

This really just seems like a Hoale hate fest in report form. If you have in your official report phrases like "white men riot" then I'm just going to write off that this isn't an unbiased report stating facts.

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eimichan t1_j19fxpz wrote

I mean, Assemblyman James Ramos sponsored the law and he's a member of the Serrano/Cahuilla tribe (https://a45.asmdc.org/biography). He's actually California's first indigenous Assemblyman. He's responsible for a lot of initiatives that benefit indigenous peoples.

I haven't seen any indigenous groups come out against the name. https://ethnicmediaservices.org/domestic-violence/tribal-leaders-law-enforcement-discuss-implementation-of-feather-alert-system/

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senorglory t1_j19hcjw wrote

“Trafficked” means solicited online?

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boxer_dogs_dance t1_j19k6oo wrote

I am not indigenous and he is certainly qualified to approve the name, so that is good to hear about. My first reaction to the name was cringe. But my first reaction to the iPad name was cringe also and that became popular. I didn't see how people would get past menstruation jokes, but they did and now use the name unironically. Bottom line, it's a well intentioned program that may do some good.

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[deleted] t1_j19kcob wrote

people on the mainland have no idea and/or don't care that hawaii is basically 1/2 starving abused native people and 1/2 pineapple plantation, with a thin veneer of rich people's houses and resorts to keep visitors from noticing it. they are barely a part of the usa, those people have few to no rights, and if you ask me it's basically as much of a US colony as puerto rico or guam are. they simply stick a different label on these places as a superficial fix, so i am also not the least bit surprised that the military personnel deployed there are horrible to the natives.

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[deleted] t1_j19ktko wrote

it's way worse in canada. sex offenders flock to quebec because of laws there designed specifically to protect them. they are allowed to live with children and continue using the internet in many cases and do not have to regularly report or notify any of their neighbors. they've all but decriminalized child molestation there, and the same goes for rapists who went for people of age.

also, due to how easy it is to cross the us/canada border, and how rural it becomes up there once you hit canada, it's a big hotspot for kidnapping and trafficking even if the end destination is nowhere near canada, since they can catch a small plane or get on a boat from there to anywhere in many cases.

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YouJustSaidButFuck t1_j19mcl0 wrote

This reads like someone told you some anecdotes about living in Hawaii and you just regurgitated them.

Describing Hawaii as "barely part of the USA" is the most ignorant description of Hawaii, regardless of what island you may or may not have visited.

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Raalf t1_j19mu87 wrote

So when I lived in Texas the vernacular slang to distinguish between native American and individuals native to the country of India was "indian. Dot not feather" - indicating native Americans were thought to wear feathers on their head and Indians are known to have a red dot on their forehead called a 'bindi' as part of a religious practice. While effective at clarification of race/origin, it was never meant as a compliment.

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[deleted] t1_j19o7bf wrote

my comment may have been a bit of a hyperbole, but it's far from ignorant or incorrect. barely a part of the usa is also extremely accurate. we only took it over as insulation from japan, and as this post and many others clearly describe, it's very rough for native people there. yes, there is tons of natural beauty too, but i think you are probably more jaded about the situation there for the past 50-70 years than i am.

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[deleted] t1_j19osh0 wrote

and you are from michigan, so im going to assume your only visit was as a tourist, i.e. you went to exactly the staged and manicured tourist areas that i described. there are mass shootings there all the time, usually on the part of the police, and there is a massive meth and opioid issue there among a homeless population that comes there expecting to live the easy life on the beach and ends up in tent cities. the cops want nothing more than to keep the poor natives and the homeless away from the tourist areas, and they will use extreme violence to enforce that especially when they know they aren't being observed, as is the case when they raid the encampments.

my friend was shot and killed in one such raid, so i'm fairly sure you are the one that has not seen the actual state of the place.

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SmylesLee77 t1_j19pu67 wrote

I heard that joke in New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation. It is a joke told by natives. In a way it shows White ignorance. You cannot discover a new place last. Chinese and Vikings discovered it before Columbus!

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joeypublica t1_j19sfe6 wrote

Lived on Oahu, spent quite a bit of time in Kauai, Maui, big island. Not much time on the Hilo side though. Yeah, there are plenty of problems but your post doesn’t describe what I experienced, to me it’s hyperbole and just works to cause arguments, like this one.

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YouJustSaidButFuck t1_j19t6hg wrote

Hawaii become a territory in the late 1800s and voted on statehood many times before ww2. The annexation of Hawaii is way more complicated than fucking Japan insulation, that's just flat out ignorant. Sugar plantations basically forced the monarchy out, and votes went back and forth for decades before being approved by 90% of the population because they wanted full voting rights in the union. As a territory they already had "insulation" from Japan, as the US defends territories all the same as states.

Additionally you said it's 1/2 pineapple plantation. Most of the pineapple industry has long long left Hawaii and gone to southeast asia / the Phillipines.

From my perspective you know jack fucking shit about Hawaii.

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Hey-GetToWork t1_j19u6bk wrote

'They're indian'
'Indian? Dot or feather indian?'

Dot stereotyping people from the country of India (the Bindi).
Feather stereotyping native american peoples.

(Source my grandmother from South Dakota talking to her older friends)

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calguy1955 t1_j19u70n wrote

Are the issues pointed out by commenters here applicable to all the islands or mainly Oahu?

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Art-Zuron t1_j19vgq6 wrote

Hawaii was technically illegally annexed, so I wouldn't actually be that surprised. It was a sovereign country which had electricity and plumbing before even the US whitehouse. It was self sufficient and had a stable government and the indigenous people, the rightful people of that land, controlled it.

Then White plantation owners staged a coup, ousted the queen, and petitioned the US government, through a group of sympathetic senators, to annex Hawaii. It was illegal to do so, however, as a sovereign state, which the US recognized. The federal government refused to bring Hawaii in as a state, as it was not only super unethical, but they were getting a huge deal out of it. The Queen was allowing the US navy to station there, and the US didn't have to pay much of the upkeep for it.

In response, the gov ordered the plantation owners to fuck off, and the Queen was going to return to power. Then the Spanish American war kicked off. The Philippines were still Spanish controlled back then and the West Coast was quite vulnerable if the Spanish decided to attack. So, the US government decided to say "fuck it" and annexed Hawaii as a territory so that the Queen couldn't reconsider the role of Americans in her country given what they had done.

Nowadays, the Islands would starve in a few weeks because the US butchered the land, destroyed their self sufficiency, and shut out most of the indigenous populations from government and representation for decades. Lots of awful shit has been done to the locals, from nearly exterminating their culture, and co-opting what was left, to destroying or building on sacred sites. There's videos of people pissing on their hallowed ground.

So, don't color me surprised to learn any of that was true at some point, or even still true.

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[deleted] t1_j19wphi wrote

i am describing what the united states did to hawaii, not what it inherently is as a place, nor am i making any kind of critical commentary towards the natives. as for the historical aspects of what you mentioned, you really didn't describe anything that different from what i said initially other than the pineapple thing.

please check rule numbers 7 and 8, and stop talking to me please.

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[deleted] t1_j19x4hk wrote

i wasn't in or starting an argument with anyone, i am literally just talking. if you read into my comments as angry that's on you, but you and others here have absolutely tried to pick a fight, so i'm not sure you are going to get much credit for backpedaling now.

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[deleted] t1_j19xqjr wrote

you are welcome to read my other comments, where you will find that i lived in hilo and that my friend was shot by police there last year. i also recommend you spellcheck your comments a little more thoroughly.

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[deleted] t1_j19xxsy wrote

i've already answered this twice, but for the sake of anyone else reading who can't view the entire thread: i am from hilo, i left shortly after my friend was killed.

Edit: this was in the news, he was a schizophrenic who had wandered into a vacation property and was shot multiple times by a swat team.

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BornAgainBlue t1_j19y3h6 wrote

I'm not the one who thought we acquired Hawaii to put a buffer between Japan and the United States. I agree with everyone else. You have never been to Hawaii. You don't know anything about Hawaii and the fact that you're going after spelling. Yours shows that you're getting a little desperate.

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[deleted] t1_j19yge4 wrote

right, it's been utterly destroyed, it's natural ecosystem ruined with invasive species and the native people horrifically abused and deprived. it's a very bad place to live at this point unless you are a millionaire who only vacations there.

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[deleted] t1_j19ypv1 wrote

again, please check your spelling. i am not here to argue with anyone, so if you are here specifically to jab at me with various ungrounded insults, then kindly do that on your own time, by yourself, in a place where you will not bring harm to anyone else in your tantrum.

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jpterodactyl t1_j19ywli wrote

Some of The alert names are strange to me.

Like, The “silver” alert is interesting. It makes it sound like silver fox. I feel like “gray would’ve been more appropriate.

It reads like: “Everyone be on the lookout for someone who looks like Pierce Brosnan”

But I think that might be on purpose. More memorable or something.

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softwhiteclouds t1_j1a3iuw wrote

It comes from a joke.

"OH, you're Indian? Feather (meaning First Nations) or dot?" (meaning South Asian, as in a bindhi forehead mark).

That said, I don't see a problem with the name Feather Alert. The Eagle Feather is almost universally seen as important in nearly every North American First Nations community/culture.

It seems like a very respectful way to denote the importance of addressing missing FN women, especially given the bill was introduced by a FN person.

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softwhiteclouds t1_j1a3wio wrote

Having been married to a South Asian woman and we both worked at s place with lots of First Nations colleagues, I assure you most don't care, and they often use the term amongst themselves.

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[deleted] t1_j1a3wl7 wrote

johnny harris does not always present information accurately and generally includes a painful amount of self indulgent footage that is entirely unrelated to the topic of his videos, so while i enjoyed a few of his pieces shortly after he left vox, the quality of his journalism has been dramatically worsening with each successive video.

afaik the hawaii video was pretty reasonable and accurate, but i can't stand watching so much b footage of him "doing research" or staring at a screen with a forced inquisitive look on his face, since it's so obviously egotistical.

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softwhiteclouds t1_j1a4hpl wrote

Canada, too. Anecdotally, I knew a guy from my reserve unit caught TWICE. Once, sexually touching his friend's 9 year old daughter,then later, while awaiting trial, answered a bogus ad for an underage hooker (it was a police sting).

He did time, appealed and lost. He claimed PTSD from serving in Afghanistan, but he wasn't even there with the military, he went as a civilian airport security guard, watching CCTV cameras for 9 months, never ever had a bullet fired towards him.

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CAllD2B t1_j1ay1dd wrote

It’s almost as if maintaining a colony that resulted from a coup by white supremacists interested in running plantations is a bad thing and the US should return sovereignty to Hawaiians.

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Dejugga t1_j1beks1 wrote

If the US did so, it would be re-conquered in a few decades, most likely by China. Hawaii is simply too geographically valuable to remain independent for long and will always be dependent on a great power for safety going forward.

That said, no question that how the US got Hawaii was shady as fuck.

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Any_Cook_8888 t1_j1c89b2 wrote

I literally live in Hawaii, and while that guy does take it a bit far descriptively, he’s not wrong… Hawaii is not the US in terms of its development in almost all levels.

The only similarity is in its paved roads and some new developments to suit the desire of boxes with roofs that get off white folk/westernized tastes

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YouJustSaidButFuck t1_j1ewlqq wrote

I don't know where you're getting the "formal procedure" for annexation not being followed. Congress changed the law on this to initiate annexation, and McKinley signed that and subsequently moved forward with annexation without the need for a ratified treaty.

The state then subsequently went through the actual statehood process many times.

There was obviously major opposition throughout the process, especially by a native majority who pushed the senate hard to disapprove the original treaty, lbut this was ultimately defeated via the change in law for annexation.

The president absolutely signed the joint resolution by congress to change annexation rules and then subsequently did so.

Cleveland supported the Kingdom of Hawaii, but McKinley subsequently trounced it and basically gave Dole the governorship.

You can't just say "the US government supported the Kingdom of Hawaii". The US government is made up of thousands of people, holding variable positions on things. The US governments interests change with the leadership.

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