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RIGHTS-U.S.: One in Three Native Women Suffer Sexual Assault
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Apr 25 (IPS) - Native American women are at least 2.5 times as
likely to be sexually assaulted in their lifetime as other women in the
United States, according to a major new report by Amnesty International
(AI) released here Wednesday.
At least one in three indigenous women will be raped or otherwise subject
to sexual violence in their lifetime, according to the 113-page report,
the latest in a series produced by the London-based group's Campaign to
Stop Violence Against Women.
At least 86 percent of reported rapes or other sexual assaults against
indigenous women are committed by non-Indian men who are only very rarely
prosecuted or punished, according to the report, 'Maze of Injustice: The
Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA'.
The failure to pursue justice in such cases is due to a number of factors,
the report noted, including chronic under-funding of police and health
services and a "complex maze of tribal, state and federal jurisdictions
that is so confusing that it often allows perpetrators to evade justice
entirely..."
"What this amounts to is a travesty of justice for the tens of thousands
of Indigenous survivors of rape," said Larry Cox, executive director of
Amnesty's U.S. section, AIUSA.
"Violence against women is not only a criminal or social issue; it is also
a human rights abuse," he added. "In failing to ensure that Indigenous
women are protected from violence, the U.S. government is complicit in
violating their human rights. It is disgraceful that such abuse even
exists today."
Registered Native Americans, who make up about 1.4 percent of the U.S.'
300 million citizens, are distributed among some 560 tribal governments
across the country.
While these governments are given substantial autonomy over their internal
affairs, the federal government has steadily eroded their authority,
including their justice systems, over time, particularly in areas that
involve non-Native individuals or interests.
In one of the most far-reaching cases, the Supreme Court ruled in 1978
that tribal governments cannot prosecute criminal defendants who are
non-Indian even if the crime of which they are accused takes place on
tribal lands.
In addition, tribal authorities, many of whose communities suffer the
highest poverty rates in the U.S., are chronically under-financed, leading
to major gaps in law enforcement and the availability of social and health
services compared to non-Native communities.
The report, which was based on Justice Department data and research in
three states with proportionately large Native American populations -
Alaska, South Dakota, and Oklahoma - found indigenous girls and women
suffered most from these deficiencies.
"American Indian and Alaska Native women are living in a virtual war zone,
where rape, abuse and murder are commonplace and sexual predators prey
with impunity," said Sarah Deer, an attorney at the California-based
Tribal Law and Policy Institute.
"In many tribal communities, rape and molestation are so common that young
women fully expect that they will be victims of sexual violence at some
point," she noted, adding that the weakening of tribal justice systems by
the federal government has made it far more difficult for victims of
sexual violence to gain redress.
Indeed, federal and tribal statistics may understate the degree of
violence suffered by Native American women, according to the report, which
noted that fear of retaliation and the lack of confidence that the
authorities will take allegations of assault seriously tend to reduce
reporting of sexual assault throughout the United States, as well as in
Native American communities.
One support worker in Oklahoma, for example, told AI that only three of
her 77 active cases of sexual and domestic violence had been reported to
the police.
And many women interviewed on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South
Dakota said they could not think of a single Native American woman within
the community who had not been subjected to sexual violence at some point
in their lives, and that many had suffered several assaults, by different
perpetrators.
Native American women were victims in nearly 80 percent of confirmed cases
of rape and murder in Alaska over the last 15 years, according to a
medical professional responsible for post-mortem examinations of such
cases in the state who was interviewed by AI. Native Americans make up
only 16 percent of Alaska's total population of about 675,000.
Jurisdictional issues have often been a major obstacle to successful
prosecution of sexual assaults, particularly in states such as Oklahoma
where land owned by nearly 40 different tribes adjoin each other and are
often intersected by state land in a "checkerboard" pattern.
Renee Brewer, family violence co-ordinator with the Citizen Potawatomi
Nation in Oklahoma, cited one case in which the victim, a member of the
Shawnee Tribe, lived in tribal housing owned by another tribe, the Sac &
Fox Nation, but located within the limits of an incorporated city outside
of tribal lands.
She had a valid protective order against her estranged husband, a
Seminole, who entered her home, beat and raped her, and then refused to
leave. When she called 911, police officers from four different
jurisdictions showed up.
"Being an Indian woman rape victim in the state of Oklahoma usually means
that law enforcement officers spend as much time trying to determine the
appropriate responding authority as they do in protecting you from the
rapist," she said.
In that case, police assistance was at least available. In South Dakota's
Standing Rock Reservation, an area of almost one million hectares (2.3
million acres), tribal police have at most three patrol officers on duty
during the day. Nevertheless, Amnesty found that women on the reservation
who report sexual violence often have to wait for hours, even days, before
receiving a response from the police department, if they receive any at
all.
In Alaska, the situation for Native American women in rural districts, a
third of which have no police presence at all, is even more dramatic.
In addition to under-funding Native law enforcement agencies, the federal
government has also denied adequate resources to the Indian Health
Service, according to Amnesty, which found that in cases where health
facilities were relatively close and accessible, they often lacked
qualified staff or even inexpensive rape kits that would be helpful to any
eventual prosecution.
The fact that non-Native perpetrators cannot be tried in tribal courts has
actually drawn sexual predators to tribal areas to assault women, because
they know that federal prosecutions are rare in those areas, according to
Deer.
"The majority of rape cases on tribal lands that are referred to the
federal courts are reportedly never brought to trial," said Amnesty's Cox.
"Sex offenders and predators are well aware of the jurisdictional gaps and
confusion created by the Oklahoma checkerboards," added Brewer.
"Non-Indians often flaunt their crimes because it is so rare that they
will be held accountable."
(END/2007)
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