Q&A: Durante Blais-Billie with Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming
We have the great honor of partnering with Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming, the Presenting Sponsor of the 2025 Freedom Awards. Their generous support helps make this powerful celebration possible. In the interview below, we speak with Durante Blais-Billie, Social Responsibility Specialist, to learn of their advocacy for human trafficking prevention Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW).
In 2023, you accepted the Freedom Award from PACT on behalf of The Seminole Tribe of Florida. Can you share more about Seminole Gaming’s commitment to human trafficking prevention?
Seminole Gaming and Hard Rock International are both owned and operated by a sovereign nation- the Seminole Tribe of Florida. The tribal nation’s ownership creates a really unique perspective to operations. As a sovereign nation, the tribe’s motivations are self-determination, citizen welfare, and creating a meaningful legacy of global citizenship. All of these goals and values are fundamentally connected to the prevention of human trafficking, both on Seminole lands and within all the communities our properties operate.
As well, being an Indigenous community we personally understand the historic causes of the vulnerabilities and barriers that led to the crisis of human trafficking within marginalized communities.
With this perspective, the issue of human trafficking prevention is a huge priority for us. Our commitment to human trafficking prevention is not just rooted in publicity or corporate brand reputation, but in sharing resources across different communities and upholding our connections to partners within this fight. Because of this, we are very open to sharing our strategies of protection, prevention, and education not just within the tribal gaming industry, but across all sectors that share the same risk factors.
In your speech at the Freedom Awards, you discussed how the Indigenous community feels deeply connected to the issue of human trafficking. Can you share more about why you personally feel a calling to this cause and how that connection drives your work?
The connection of Indigenous communities and human trafficking is unfortunately deeply historical. Though the name Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women is a contemporary title, the exploitation and commodification of Indigenous bodies has been ongoing for centuries. An important part of understanding this history and its impacts on Indigenous communities today is exposing the interconnectedness of the exploitation of land, waters, resources, and peoples. For example, many Indigenous activists fighting the climate crisis highlight how land exploitations like pipelines have an impact on the safety of neighboring Indigenous communities with human trafficking spikes in area’s known as “man camps” to serve the demands of an influx of transient workers.
Personally for me, I feel intensely called to the work of human trafficking prevention as I view it as a hugely necessary step in ensuring the survival of Indigenous cultures, languages, lands, waters, knowledge, and bodies. I believe one aspect of Indigenous protection cannot exist without the protection of all that is sacred. So even in my work that relates to land protection, human trafficking prevention is vital. And in my work that promotes cultural continuation, community safety is just as relevant.
The empowering side of this connection is that the path to liberation for the lands, waters, and bodies of Indigenous peoples is also interconnected! By fighting for the safety of any aspect of Indigenous culture and existence all other aspects become safer and stronger.
What advice would you give to other leaders on how they can help advance the cause of preventing human trafficking especially among marginalized communities?
To answer this, I’ll speak from a personal perspective: I think the most meaningful start in working alongside communities is making sure your actions are completely informed by their specific and unique needs. While there are shared strategies to community protection and safety, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution as we all come from different cultures, circumstances, and environments.
It is important to make sure all your actions and plans surrounding a population are developed with clear consent, community accessible documentation, and constant flexibility to ensure the peoples we serve and work with also have a right to self-determination even in the face of crisis.
Earlier this year, you hosted a panel for Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming about the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) and how it is often overlooked. What steps can we take to become stronger advocates and promote greater education and awareness surrounding Native women and their rights?
I believe the first step in advocacy for the issue of MMIW is self-education. Turning to one of the many amazing Indigenous-led organizations, such as the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, is a great start. These organizations provide education, statistics, and training to familiarize yourself with the historic roots and contemporary scale of what we are fighting. Indigenous populations are distinctly vulnerable due to jurisdictional limitations and historical barriers to protection. To raise awareness it is important to understand why Indigenous people are at such a high risk, so that we may fill the gaps in community safety left by colonial violence. Through education and familiarization with survivor supporting organizations, such as the StrongHearts Native Helpline, we can ensure community access to life-saving services that are designed to serve Indigenous people in culturally intentional ways.
Many Indigenous organizations also provide toolkits and action steps to implement safety and prevention in your own home communities. While the MMIW movement is intended to distinctly call attention to the disproportionately high rates of violence against Indigenous peoples, a lot of the research and work done for community protection is intersectional and can be a great resource for all historically marginalized populations.