For These Women, ‘Scourge of Rape, Rare Justice’
A 19-year-old woman is raped in her home late at night by an intruder. She calls the police. No one answers. She leaves a message. No one returns her call. No one follows up.
One in three women like her “have been raped or have experienced an attempted rape,” says the New York Times.
According to a survey, the rate of sexual violence in rural villages like the one where the above-mentioned rape took place is as much as 12 times the national rate in the U.S.
If one wonders in what rural village, in which foreign country this could happen, the reader is in for a very unpleasant surprise, as I was, albeit the title of the Times article I was reading already gave it away.
Yes, the young woman whose ordeal the New York Times describes is an American Indian woman — a Native American woman — in Emmonak, Alaska, the United States of America.
While the rate of sexual assault for American Indian women is more than twice the national average, “no place, women’s advocates say, is more dangerous than Alaska’s isolated villages, where there are no roads in or out, and where people are further cut off by undependable telephone, electrical and Internet service,” according to the Times.
Some more unpleasant reports and statistics by the Times:
…[I]nterviews with Native American women here and across the nation’s tribal reservations suggest an even grimmer reality: They say few, if any, female relatives or close friends have escaped sexual violence.
[::]
The difficulties facing American Indian women who have been raped are myriad, and include a shortage of sexual assault kits at Indian Health Service hospitals, where there is also a lack of access to birth control and sexually transmitted disease testing. There are also too few nurses trained to perform rape examinations, which are generally necessary to bring cases to trial.
Women say the tribal police often discourage them from reporting sexual assaults, and Indian Health Service hospitals complain they lack cameras to document injuries.
[::]
In the Navajo Nation, which encompasses parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, 329 rape cases were reported in 2007 among a population of about 180,000. Five years later, there have been only 17 arrests. Women’s advocates on the reservation say only about 10 percent of sexual assaults are reported.
[::]
Nationwide, an arrest is made in just 13 percent of the sexual assaults reported by American Indian women, according to the Justice Department, compared with 35 percent for black women and 32 percent for whites.
In South Dakota, Indians make up 10 percent of the population, but account for 40 percent of the victims of sexual assault. Alaska Natives are 15 percent of that state’s population, but constitute 61 percent of its victims of sexual assault.
The Justice Department did not prosecute 65 percent of the rape cases on Indian reservations in 2011.
For many more grim statistics, please read here.
The question, of course, is what is being done about it.
Sadly, an issue that should unite our lawmakers in serious attempts to bring justice and security to Native American women “has become one of the major sources of discord in the current debate between the White House and the House of Representatives over the latest reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994.”
The Times:
A Senate version, passed with broad bipartisan support, would grant new powers to tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians suspected of sexually assaulting their Indian spouses or domestic partners. But House Republicans, and some Senate Republicans, oppose the provision as a dangerous expansion of the tribal courts’ authority, and it was excluded from the version that the House passed last Wednesday. The House and Senate are seeking to negotiate a compromise.
In the meantime, back in Emmonak, Alaska, “the overmatched police have failed to keep statistics related to rape” and the young woman who was raped there — she is now 22 — has asked, “that her name not be used because she fears retaliation from her attacker, whom she still sees in the village.” The Times adds, “She said she knew of five other women he had raped, though she is the only one who reported the crime.”
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Wow Dorian. That is a sobering story. Thank you for sharing this important information.
I thought I’d just add a quick link to a list of reputable organizations that deal with violence against women, in case anyone would like to help. There’s a section specifically dealing with native populations about 3/4 the way down the list.
http://www.couragenetwork.com/violence_against_women_organizations.html
It is my turn to say WOW!!, roro.
So many kinds of violence we perpetrate against each other — incredible.
Fortunately, we have as many organizations trying to cope with what we do to ourselves.
Thanks
Oh indeed, Dorian. There are lots of great orgs out there that do invaluable work, but most are cash starved, and they can’t make up for a justice system that routinely ignores certain vulnerable populations.
roro
I was prodded by your list of help organizations, and the faith based group, to see what my church has available. I was pleased to see we have many agencies to help women but was displeased to see that at least one leader thought domestic violence against males was “a distraction” since they are only 16% of the total victims. I’m sure the church is just as concerned about violence against males, but you’d never know it from his statement.
The statistics about known domestic violence overwhelmingly involve women, but I’ve often wondered how underreported violence against males is. Having had a neighbor that was a male victim of his wife was an eye-opener for me. Since you seem to be active in this field, do you have any information that would be helpful?
It seems we’ve had this discussion before?
Dorian
I had to backtrack to see what the problem was which led house members to gut the Indian Tribal Courts’ provision. I found this from a Statement of Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli Before the Committee on Indian Affairs on Violence Against Native American Women.
[Tribal governments — police, prosecutors, and courts — should be essential parts of the response to these crimes. But under current law, they lack the authority to address many of these crimes. Until recently, no matter how violent the offense, tribal courts could only sentence Indian offenders to one year in prison. Under the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 (TLOA), landmark legislation enacted last year in no small part due to the efforts of this Committee, tribal courts can now sentence Indian offenders for up to three years per offense, provided defendants are given proper procedural protections, including legal counsel. But tribal courts have no authority at all to prosecute a non-Indian, even if he lives on the reservation and is married to a tribal member. Tribal police officers who respond to a domestic-violence call, only to discover that the accused is non-Indian and therefore outside the tribe’s criminal jurisdiction, often mistakenly believe they cannot even make an arrest. Not surprisingly, abusers who are not arrested are more likely to repeat, and escalate, their attacks. Research shows that law enforcement’s failure to arrest and prosecute abusers both emboldens attackers and deters victims from reporting future incidents.]
This legislation was an effort to correct that problem, but Rep. Virginia Foxx of NC evidently opposes it as just being more regulation.
[“We are strengthening the Violence Against Women Act, not weakening it,” Ms. Foxx said. “We want to see women served better and money spent better. Our goal is to ensure that more money is spent on direct services and less on administrative bureaucracy.” ]
The refusal to extend coverage to immigrant and LBGT victims is unsurprising, given the current composition of the House. It may be worth noting that 23 Reps voted agains the bill that eschewed these provisions and 6 Dems voted for it.
The statistics that 1 in 3 native women suffer this violence with little recourse is a national disgrace.
“The statistics that 1 in 3 native women suffer this violence with little recourse is a national disgrace”
Agree.
(N.B. To see where Ms. Foxx falls on the political spectrum, see here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/virginia_foxx/400643)
Thanks Dorian, for this. Appreciate it.
This is just wrong that a woman in a village or city, doesnt matter cannot have dual jurisdictions to hear her plea. Indian tribes are sovereign nations so-called, meaning they are not to answer to any other nation. I hear people say they pay no taxes to the Fed, have huge grants of US federal taxpayers monies, (someone the other day mentioned, 85% of Cherokee nation budget of many millions, comes from US. The Navajo and others have sent some of their own leaders to jail on corruption charges re taking tribal money and not distributing it to the poor of the tribe so that year after year the old and the ill go without support that was precisely given to help them.
I dont know about all that. What I do know is this, and I may write it out more fully as a post. I live in the southwest for near fifty years now. One of the many times on the Navajo (Diné) rez I saw an act of cruelty from the trader toward an old couple who had walked across the desert to get there. The tribal people behind the counter said nothing, but looked down with their faces but up at me with pleading eyes. I stepped in. The trader was absolutely obscene in my opinion in his heartless response when confronted with what he had so needlessly done to the old people.
To make it short: I contacted the women’s group on the rez, and they told stories about abuse by men, native men and white men that made anyone who hears, be not numbed, but on fire.
My way was, forget the police. My colleagues and I had started the first Safe House in the West in 1970, we knew still support that abuse even existed was sketchy, unlike in many jurisdictions today. I went straight to the Navajo newspaper, wrote it all out. They printed it. Did it help? Yes. Did it solve the problem rez-wide? No. What did it do? It strengthened those who have bowed their heads to that kind of humiliation for decades and in their own home place. It added just a bit more strength for… one day coming to rise up in justice claims.
The Alaskan woman you mention in your article, however she got to the media, did exactly the right thing. And here in the West, it isnt just the police or federal law or sovereign nation law that are the issue about abuse of vulnerable people whether men or women, elders or children… it is often a poisonous combination of entrenched cronyism, the not aroused heart, the lack of will, lack of adequate training, and Stockholm syndrome, normalization of violence, feelings of shame before the community, fear of reprisal, and other factors. Just as anywhere else this poison cocktail of ‘no effective action and containment’ has been true. It is true amongst people, tribal or not. Until one day…
Longest comment ever coming up:
Hi Ohioan —
Because the subject here is specifically rape and sexual violence, I don’t know that your question is necessarily on topic. It’s a tendency among many to take a conversation about women and make it about men, so it does make me a little uncomfortable. However, as it looks like there is not, at this time, much other commentary that is specifically on topic, it seems harmless enough to shift gears to domestic violence. There’s a lot of overlap between sexual and domestic violence anyway, so it’s a fairly natural segue.
There are tons of differences between the common ways in which domestic violence victimizes women vs men. The same could be said of sexual violence with regards to gender. We see a disproportionate number of male domestic and sexual violence victims whose partners/attackers are male; as you point out, the GOP doesn’t consider this form of domestic violence to be a problem, as they refuse to concede that gay people set up domestically just like straight people, and therefore are subject to the same sorts of partner abuse. (Woman-on-woman domestic violence victims are, percentagewise, roughly on par with their straight woman counterparts, if my memory serves me.) Gay men are far, far more likely to be sexual violence victims than straight men, and that holds even if we count child sexual abuse (boys make up about a third of child molestation victims) and prison rape (which is such a huge problem, whose general use as joke by huge portions of society is truly disgusting, in my opinion). The numbers also get muddled because, compared to their relatively tiny percentage in the population, trans people are far and away the most statistically likely to be sexually or domestically abused, and the numbers only get worse when we start considering trans women, and trans women of color specifically. These trans women are usually counted in the numbers of “male” victims. In other words, numbers for male victims are bad, and almost certainly are dramatically unreported (as with women), but it should be noted what these numbers actually mean.
Besides just demographics of who gets victimized, the differences between the victimization of men vs women fall into a lot of other categories as well. For gay men and trans woman victims, as well as straight men abused by either women or men, there is a tendency not to report due to masculinity issues – they don’t want to be outed as gay/trans, don’t want to be accused of being gay if they’re not (as in the case of men being sexually assaulted by another man), and don’t want to be seen as having been beaten up by a woman. However, it’s much more rare that a male victim will fail to report a rape or domestic violence due to financial or societal dependence upon his abuser; this is extraordinarily common for women victims. There is also the issue of creating safe spaces for male victims. Most shelters are specifically woman-only, and there are very important reasons for this – many victims are extremely traumatized, and woman-only environments can help ease the fear and triggering of being around males. It’s also considered a safer environment for children. However, this leaves a big unmet need for soft landing places for male victims and trans victims, who may not even be considered women by the state or the org running the shelter. Because men are just naturally stronger than women, there is a definite difference in the amount of damage a non-armed abuser can do, and of course the incidence of domestic violence rising to the level murder is much more common with male abusers. However, it’s my opinion that domestic violence in general – regardless off the gender of the victim or abuser – needs to be treated with the same seriousness by our justice system as other forms of violence. The gendered nature of the treatment of domestic violence victims might be less dramatic if domestic violence weren’t considered a “women’s issue”, and therefore less important than other forms of violence. It’s a vicious little sexism circle. If more focus on male victims, even if not as numerous as female victims, gets our justice system to actually look at DV as a serious issue, heck, I’m all for it.
One thing I must bring up, just because I saw it so many times when working with domestic violence victims, I fear that some of the numbers of males victimized by women may be exaggerated. I saw many cases of women who finally called the cops after extended abuse from their partners, only to have the police also file charges of DV against the woman, who fought back with fingernails or weapons. I was pretty shocked that this would occur – it upset me so much the first time I came across it that I almost quit – but it’s a fairly common thing. Look on MRA websites and it’s actually actively encouraged to do this sort of thing. (Actually, strike that, don’t go on MRA websites – they’re too, too depressing). This may just be a distraction from the issue, as I’ve never been able to find good numbers on how often this happens, but it was something that touched me very deeply when I was working with victims, so I have a hard time dismissing it as a possible issue, failing good data at least.
Sorry about the novel here, but did that answer your question for more information, Ohioan?
Thank you so much, Dr. E and roro for adding relevant information and more clarity to the issues of sexual abuse against Native American women and against women in general, respectively.
Dorian
Thanks, roro
I’m sure now that this has been discussed here before, because I remember the problem of finding male victims a shelter being mentioned.
Until everyone’s safety can be addressed, the biggest problem both in numbers and in physical injury (violence against women) should be where the efforts are spent. It might help them, as well, if awareness of male victims is acknowledged – maybe even more interest in stopping this could be generated.
My neighbor wasn’t so terribly physically abused, though that happened also, but he was concerned about their young children being exposed to the abuse. They never knew when the violence would explode, which is what often happens in families no matter which partner resorts to violence.
Dorian,
I’m well aware of Ms. Foxx’s attitude – she’s made a lot of news the past few years by being way out on the fringe. She would naturally be the right-wing’s spokesperson, as a woman, about this subject.
@Ohioan. True. We had at our Safe House, a number of men also. They were sometimes gay, sometimes straight, and had been relentlessly abused by men or by women. The gay people are most often left out of the equation by ‘inch-deep
‘ observers. Lesbians. Gay men. Gay teens. Parents of gay children whose mates are beating the adult parent for ‘making’ a child gay. It is madness. And ignorance. And vile.