Man camps bring violence against women
Keystone XL work near Cheyenne River Lakota Nation shut down for the day
'Within the first five minutes, we had a threat from a local to shoot down our drone and we had several other locals make threats and even had a gun pointed at us from a tractor.' -- Candi Brings Plenty
By Candi Brings Plenty
ACLU Indigenous Justice Organizer, South Dakota
Censored News
PHILIP, South Dakota -- Today, we held our ground for five hours and sent home the Man Camp workers and shut down work for the day. When there is resource extraction from our sacred lands, the Indigenous Womxn in those lands are directly impacted.
Man Camps especially this particular one, is only half an hour from the tribal border and only took me an hour and a half to get there from Rapid City. They will be taking advantage of our young womxn with drugs, alcohol and sex trafficking. We will all feel the impact, especially the families of those these men will prey on.
As a mother, auntie, sister, and unći, as long as I can make a stance and offer my energy, support and prayer to continue elevating our voices with the intent to protect our sacred womxn and Two Spirits from Man Camps, I will continue to show up.
Within the first five minutes, we had a threat from a local to shoot down our drone and we had several other locals make threats and even had a gun pointed at us from a tractor. I learned today that locals have no clue what is in store and that we need to educate them and help them understand the guaranteed irreversible destruction these man camps will cause, for not only the wellbeing of our environment and sacred water but also to our communities.
This is just one of many Man Camps that will be constructed alongside the Keystone Pipeline. The surrounding tribal nations, rural bar towns and even Rapid City will be impacted.
Please educate your daughters, sisters, sons and all your loved ones what human trafficking is and how to create an emergency plan of communication if your loved ones finds themselves in a harmful situation.
Not all rapes, murders and sex trafficking will happen at these sites, but also in our local communities! Man Camps are associated with pipelines and will bring in sex offenders and violent criminals who can’t get jobs anywhere else. We have witnessed what these man camps brought during the Bakken Shale man camps in North Dakota during the Dakota Access Pipeline: 243 rapes in one year in a very rural land base, with only a few man camps, the KXL Pipeline initially proposed eleven Man Camps from Montana through South Dakota and Nebraska.
Today, I was invited by the Cheyenne River Grassroots Collective to support this action with these youthful grassroots activists. My intent was to train them on best practices for legal observing, but fortunately, the four local sheriffs units and three highway patrol kept their distance. They even stated they didn’t support the Man Camps.
It was great to witness these frontline warriors citing their constitutional rights and stating verbally that they know their civil liberties and their rights to protest. This is also why those officers kept their distance.
I love my Water Protector siblings, they inspire me every time I am honored to take my stance next to them.
#NoManCamps #NoMoreMMIW
#NoKXL #WeAreNotARiot
