‘Trafficking is everybody’s issue,’ says Ontario Native Women’s Association Indigenous anti-human trafficking development coordinator – Anishinabek News
May 19, 2026
THUNDER BAY — Beausoleil First Nation’s Diane Marion shared her Healing from Human Trafficking presentation at the Aboriginal Shelters of Ontario’s Anti-Human Trafficking Conference on May 1 in Thunder Bay. The conference, which was held at the Best Western Plus Nor’Wester Hotel and Conference Centre, also included presentations by the Ontario Native Women’s Association’s (ONWA) Hannah Buck and Lindsey Lickers and Thunder Bay Police Service’s Detective Constable Amanda Zappitelli and Detective Constable Jason Nistico.
“When I quit the alcohol is when I started trying to learn my culture, and that was probably the hardest because I never went to my own community, I’d never been there other than I think when I was little a few times,” Marion says. “The biggest thing that helped me was when I went back home because everyone was really loving and inviting. But I still struggled because I didn’t know who I was and I didn’t know my clans. When it came to healing, that was actually the biggest thing for me, it was the biggest game changer because I met people that knew my grandma, knew my family.”
