On the heels of a report issued last month that says more than a quarter of missing girls in Hawaii are Native Hawaiian, the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women has assembled a set of policy recommendations for state and federal officials.
Among them is a call for reforms in how local law enforcement and other agencies handle cases of sex trafficking and sexual abuse of minors.
HSCSW’s director, Khara Jabola-Carolus, presented the recommendations to Hawaii’s U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono last week during a roundtable discussion at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs convened by the senator that included OHA officials, women’s advocates and sex trafficking survivors.
Jabola-Carolus told Hirono that one of her biggest asks is to address concerns about military service members soliciting young girls in Hawaii for sex.
The HSCSW is recommending that Hawaii’s congressional delegation submit an amendment for a new section in Congress’s annual defense funding bill requiring the Pentagon to compile an annual report to the Congressional Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees on efforts to combat solicitation and child sexual abuse by service members. Hirono sits on both committees.
The request was prompted, in part, by findings in the Holoi a nalo Wahine ‘Oiwi report. Undertaken by the state’s Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women and Girls Task Force, the report analyzes data from various social service agencies and other sources with the aim of better identifying causes behind issues such as sex trafficking, sexual exploitation and domestic violence, which appear to affect disproportionate numbers of Native Hawaiian women and girls.
While Native Hawaiian women and girls represent only 10.2% of the total population of Hawaii, more than a quarter of missing girls here are Native Hawaiian, according to the report. Also, the average profile of a missing child is a 15-year-old Native Hawaiian girl, missing on Oahu. Additionally, the report found that a majority of sex trafficking cases involved Native Hawaiian girls trafficked in Waikiki.
The report noted that during Operation Keiki Shield — a effort overseen by the Hawaii Attorney General’s office in recent years to catch men contacting underage girls online for sex — active-duty military men accounted for 38% of those arrested in stings.
Jabola-Carolus said the report does not assert that sexual predators in military uniform are disproportionately targeting Native Hawaiian girls. Rather, Keiki Shield data was included as one of the few examples of cases of aggregated data on military members engaged in those crimes at the state level.
At the roundtable event she said, “It’s to not absolve local men from accountability, but because the U.S. military is a unique industry here with unique aggravating factors and because it’s the second largest employer — and something that (Congress) can do something about.”
After the roundtable wrapped up, Hirono said: “I will be working with our military to focus on this issue.”
When asked if she has heard from military leaders about sex trafficking and related concerns, Hirono said, “Frankly, not enough,” and then noted her own efforts on the Senate Armed Services Committee to change how the military investigates sexual assaults.
In 2022, the Pentagon Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office’s annual report found an “overall growth in an unhealthy military environment,” with about 35,800 service members reporting sexual assaults.
Jabola-Carolus said given that the military’s data does not include service member harassment or assault of civilians, addressing that problem has been a challenge.
A variety of officials and agencies across the military tackle investigations of abuse allegations. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service and Army Criminal Investigation Division handle active criminal investigations and have worked with Hawaii law enforcement on Operation Keiki Shield. The Department of Defense employs specialists who work on sexual assault prevention within the force and maintains the Combating Trafficking in Persons Agency, which is tasked with preventing trafficking across the entire military.
Pentagon spokeswoman Cmdr. Nicole Schwegman said, “The Department of Defense continues to work diligently on combating human trafficking and provide a voice to trafficking survivors.” She said the Combating Trafficking in Persons office has met with Jabola- Carolus and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command representatives to discuss future initiatives to prevent trafficking.
Also, the HSCSW is recommending the launch of a commandwide anti- trafficking campaign within the Oahu-based U.S. Indo- Pacific Command, which oversees operations across the region. It’s envisioned to be modeled on an anti- trafficking initiative that U.S. military forces undertook in South Korea at Camp Humphreys as it consolidated its forces on the Korean Peninsula in recent years.
Jabola-Carolus said she witnessed implementation of that initiative firsthand while working on the ground with Filipina sex-trafficking victims in South Korea.
“There was very clear zero tolerance and an atmosphere of accountability,” said Jabola-Carolus. “Whenever you entered U.S. military installations in South Korea, there was large, visible and stern signage that indicated the consequences for engaging in the sex trade. So that is just one basic step that we could take in Hawaii.”
In addition to installing similar signage, the HSCSW is proposing a data-sharing agreement; a declaration of zero tolerance from Adm. John Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command; and a commitment to continuing proactive investigations into sex trafficking and child sex abuse.
At the state level, the HSCSW is calling for lawmakers to pass bills that would grant immunity from prosecution for people in the sex trade seeking medical or law enforcement assistance; mandate that the state Department of Education conduct “proactive” child sexual-abuse prevention efforts; create a statewide human-trafficking database; revamp sex education programs and create a court- mandated “John School” in Hawaii, based on Seattle’s Organization for Prostitution Survivors.
The Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women and Girls Task Force was created by the Legislature in 2021. According to an Associated Press report, several states have formed similar task force panels after a report by the Urban Indian Health Institute found that out of 5,700 cases of missing and slain Indigenous girls in dozens of U.S. cities in 2016, only 116 were logged in a Justice Department database.
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Star-Advertiser reporter Jack Truesdale contributed to this report
