Combating racial bias when women are missing

“I think anytime when you see women, especially women of color, being killed or victims of homicide it is alarming,” said Kathi Elliott, executive director of Gwen’s Girls. “Historically this group has often been overlooked when tragedy or death or homicides have happened.”

According to a 2019 report by the City of Pittsburgh’s Gender Equity Commission, Black women are “more likely to die of homicide than Black women in 93 percent of similar cities” and the city’s “young adults and older adults of all racial groups are more likely to die from homicide than the na - tional average.” And in 2020, more than a third of the 268,884 women and girls who were reported missing in the U.S. were Black, according to the National Center for Crime Statistics. Black girls and women account for just 15 percent of the U.S. population. “This is very alarming but unfortunately I’m not surprised,” Elliott told the Courier of the data. “Historically, Black girls and women’s lives aren’t valued or protected. Black girls are often seen as complicit in or the cause of the oppressive, abusive, exploitive and traumatic incidences that they experience. What’s more surprising is that addressing this isn’t a priority and that most people don’t know this horrible fact.”

Elliot, who joined the board of Gwen’s Girls in 2007 and became the CEO in 2015, is all too familiar with the discrepancies when it comes to the news coverage of Black women being victims to homicides and abductions.

“What we’ll tend to see is there might be something mentioned on the news sometimes,” Elliott said. “Then there is not follow-up or any type of effort to use the media or alarm the community to what has happened to that woman and family.”

In her years of expe - rience, Elliott said she has seen a common narrative in the press and popular culture that assumes the missing Black woman played a role in her disappearance, more so than in instances of missing White women.

“Somebody must be holding them against their will or making them do something,” Elliot said. “The same assumption is not afforded to Black girls.”

In 2017, the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality released the study, “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood,” which revealed that adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult like than their White peers.

“This whole concept of adultification, looking at Black girls being more adult-like and not needing as much caring and support as White girls, is something we’ve seen historically,” El - liott told the New Pittsburgh Courier. “We’ve seen it in our communities and within our families, but people are not aware of some of the underlying issues that go with what’s happening.”

While race and gender play a major factor on which story receives the most attention, it is not the only factor.

Paula Reed Ward, a reporter for the Pitts

burgh Tribune-Review and one of the panelists of the Feb. 3 discussion, noted the nuances that exist when dealing with missing person cases.

“Race is absolutely a consideration in these cases,” Ward said. “But there are other factors that come into play, too.” Those factors, such as socioeconomic status and how media-savvy a family is, can contribute

- to how much emphasis is placed on a missing person’s case.

“I don’t want to ever see any child abducted, Black or White,” said Pittsburgh Assistant Police Chief Lavonnie Bickerstaff, who also spoke on the panel. “But I do believe if it’s (an) affluent couple, and they know how to maneuver the media...”

Bickerstaff added that such couples would have the resources to help them travel to media outlets and reach national audiences in ways that less-affluent parents could.

“I think that we will see, maybe not as much, but I think some good coverage on getting that young lady or young man returned,” Bickerstaff said.

Bickerstaff also be - lieves family and community can play a significant role in helping recover missing persons.

“Community is critical at all of our police endeavors,” Bickerstaff said. “They can go and do and say and get the information that police will never get.”

FBI: Human trafficking on the rise in Pittsburgh

The New Pittsburgh Courier has learned that human trafficking has been on the increase in the Pittsburgh area, according to FBI Pittsburgh. Human trafficking is the illegal exploitation of a person. Anyone can be a victim of human trafficking, and it can occur in any U.S. community—cities, suburbs and even rural areas. Every year, many adults and children are trafficked worldwide, with more than 1,675 pending FBI cases as of January 2023. In fiscal year 2022, the FBI initiated 668 human trafficking investigations nationwide. The largest percentage and greatest number of sex trafficking victims recovered in the United States are U.S. citizens. FBI Pittsburgh said that human trafficking victims can be held captive through force, fraud, or physical or psychological coercion. Warning indicators of human trafficking include: Victims work in the same place they live; Poor living conditions; They let someone else speak for them; They are not in possession of their own travel or immigration documents; There are locks on the outside of doors where they live, rather than inside; They are constantly watched and guarded by someone; Their boss takes their pay or threatens them; They are lied to about the work they are to perform; They are not free to leave.

Victim recovery is the primary goal of trafficking investigations. The FBI’s multi-disciplinary team of agents, analysts, victim specialists and forensic interviewers work together to ensure a victim-centered, trauma-informed response. FBI victim specialists work with local state and federal resources to provide immediate assistance (shelter, food, clothing) and longterm support (counseling, education assistance, job training). After recovering a victim of human trafficking, field offices seek to arrest and successfully prosecute the traffickers. In the past decade, the FBI’s human trafficking