Crossposted at AMPLIFY.
Trigger warning.
"The Land Where Rapists Go Free" is part of a series called Global Diaries that the journalist Mariane Pearl does for Glamour magazine. (Marianne Pearl is the wife of Daniel Pearl who was killed in 2003 by terrorists in Pakistan, she wrote the book A Mighty Heart that was later adapted into film). Global Diaires are amazing peieces written profiling women in the US and around the world. In the series Pearl usually focuses her attention on a problem that is disproportionately affecting women and then profiles a local female leader trying to make a difference.
When I first read the title for the piece, "The Land Where Rapists Go Free", I thought the piece would be on the topic of victims of rape in a low-income country such as the Congo but instead found myself reading about this horrible injustice here in the US:
But I've come here to report on another tragedy that gets far too little attention: According to U.S. Justice Department figures, more than one in three Native women will be raped in her lifetime, and they are two and a half times more likely to be sexually assaulted or raped than non-Native women. And these estimates are widely assumed to be low because so many rapes go unreported. "We found anecdotally that the rates could be much, much higher," says Trine Christensen, a senior researcher with Amnesty International, which published a groundbreaking report on Native women and sexual violence last year. As Charon Asetoyer, an activist on the Yankton Sioux reservation, puts it, "The bottom line is that it's open season on Native women. Nearly every woman on the reservation has been affected."
Because of underfunded health services, inadequate law enforcement response and jurisdictional confusion between tribal and U.S. courts, few of these rapes are even investigated, much less prosecuted. No data exists on how many cases go to trial, but Amnesty International and other activists agree: Perpetrators are walking free. "This place is heaven for serial rapists," Charon says. "Our daughters' lives are being taken from us."
In her piece, Pearl goes on to describe the dire situation of violence against Native American women. She profiles several victims but her main focus is on Charon Asetoyer and her organization, The Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center , that has provided help to countless women suffering from interpersonal violence or sexual violence.
It was so amazing to me while reading this post, that such breaches of justice were occuring in this very country and I had no clue that they even existed. Pearl documented a real problem that has been the focus of the New York Times, The US Department of Health and Human Services, Amnesty International and The National Organization of Women. According to US DHHS Statistics,
" American Indian/Alaska Native women have the highest rates of intimate partner violence compared to all other groups."
"According to the National Violence Against Women survey, at least one out of every three American Indian/Alaska Native females has been subject to intimate partner violence. Intimate partner violence includes rape, physical assault, or stalking."
The enormity of those statistics is astonishing. I can not imagine what it would be like to grow up in that environment or live in an environment where so many of the women I know would have been victims of intimate partner violence or sexual assault. It is also so unfortunately to know that when Native women do speak out against these injustices they are so often ignored and their crimes go unreported and unfiled.
It is appalling to think that in 21st century America we still live in a society where ethnicity can be such a determinant of health outcomes. Even more appalling is to think of the racism that leads to crimes against Native women going unpunished. Native Americans have been a very resilient people, withstanding the many abuses by the US government to achieve so much. However, that does not mean that we should overlook the insidious racism, poverty and health disparities that they face. We can no longer be innocent bystanders while our sisters are being so brutally oppressed and violated, we must stand with them by acknowledging and fighting this issue.
TAKE ACTION:
1. Suppport the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center that provides desperately needed services to many Native women seeking refuge from violence
2. Read and circulate the articles about this problem to your social networks. Raising awareness is crucial to tackling this problem:
-the Global Diaries article in Glamour magazine
-the New York Times article
-the Amnesty International article
-the National Organization of Women (NOW) article
3. The US Department of Health and Human Services has several resources dedicated to this issue
4. Most importantly, if you or someone you know is a victim of intimate personal violence please get help:
To get immediate help and support
call the National Domestic Violence Hotline
at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
or the National Sexual Assault Hotline
at 1-800-656-4673.
You can also visit the
National Sexual Assault Online Hotline.
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I did a quick post about this a few months ago on my blog- http://adventureable.blogspot.com/2009/05/maze-of-injustice.html
As a survivor of rape myself, I've seen firsthand how law enforcement ignores it or downplays, even when it's reported. It's even worse what's happening to native populations in regard to this because it's so prevalent. Kudos to the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center, they're doing amazing work. Too bad the same can't be said for the government.
Violence against Native Women is problematic for reasons beyond its prevalence. I skimmed the NYT article cited and was appalled to learn that the rapes are statistically more violent with greater use of weapons and more likely to be interracial (whereas most crimes are intraracial--white-on-white for example). Since there are weird/confusing rules about jurisdiction with natives and the tribal courts cannot try a non-Native this compounds the likelihood that there will not be justice. Some crimes against Native Americans (including rape) are required to be handled by the federal legal system, which does not (and perhaps cannot due to funding and staffing issues) place a high priority on these cases.
Jessica Yee, who is pretty well known in the blogosophere and the Indigenous community, actually wrote a piece about this for Feministing last year.
You might want to do your due dilligence on your own site by cross-posting it or better yet - actually ask her to write since she is young, Native, and very active in the community.
"Jessica Yee, who is pretty well known in the blogosophere and the Indigenous community, actually wrote a piece about this for Feministing last year.
"You might want to do your due dilligence on your own site by cross-posting it or better yet - actually ask her to write since she is young, Native, and very active in the community."
Great points, and I second the nomination!
I didn't want to wait for vanessacoleman to cross-post Yee's piece before reading it, so I went looking for it myself. Is this the one you meant?
http://www.feministing.com/archives/008853.html
"Not to mention she also wrote about this for Racialicious about Indian Health Service right after this article came out as her organization works with the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Centre."
Is this the article?
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/08/07/who-is-responsible-for-your-healthcare/
Not to mention she also wrote about this for Racialicious about Indian Health Service right after this article came out as her organization works with the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Centre.
Hi. I am an Alaska resident, and I spend many hours (especially in winter) studying old Alaska native books, legends, etc..and something became very clear. I'm not going to go into it here because I don't feel it to be very appropriate.
There is a lot more to this story than even you or the writer of the book you are talking about would even begin to guess.
Much Much more. It is cultural, it is historical, and it has nothing to do with racism. It has very much to do with the role of the Alaska Native woman in history, and it would be best if you and the author of the book knew what you were talking about a little more before you write about this subject. It is a very sensitive and private subject for Alaska Native women, and it should be handled as such. No one is intentionally hiding anything here in Alaska, but there is a much more complex problem than you know anything about.
Lynne Schlumpf
Alaska In My Dreams Film Studios, Inc.
L. Schlumpf, thanks for the enlightenment!
I did a six month internship at an probation/parole office in Alaska that supervises the post conviction release of sex offenders from all across the state.
Anchorage acts as a magnet for sex offenders because it is the main location for SO treatment, so the offenders in Anchorage come from across the state.
So I saw the tribal councils letters asking for Alaska Native sex offenders to be returned to their village, no mater how despicable the assaults or how many victims they assaulted.
A lot of villagers very closely follow the trials, they know what is claimed and proven. But when it comes time to write their letters it is full of canned arguments about the injustice of the anglo judicial system... nothing about what the offender has done.
And some of the offenders are incredibly prolific, and that is just in the charges the village knows about. When it comes to confidential polygraph examinations some offenders disclose over fifty victims, and one claimed 130 over the course of his long life.
And you can't really blame a negligent Alaskan criminal justice system for the disparate assault rate, as research indicates that the arrest and conviction rates for Alaska Native victims of sexual assault is actually higher than any other demographic
( http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/forum/25/1-2springsummer2008/b_attrition.html )
The problems are huge. Back in the day alot of Alaska Native children were raised in BIA schools rife with sexual/phyisical/emotional assault. Lot of the kids never saw how parents behaved, combined with the assaults, they never knew how to be parents.
Some of them came back as sexual offenders themselves. Then you add in the FASD (which shoots impulse control to shit) and a culture that values consensus over justice and you have a recipe for disaster.
So rapes of native Alaskan women should not be addressed or prosecuted, as it is a 'very sensitive and private subject'? That makes no sense. All rapes are 'very sensitive and private subjects' and should be handled with understanding and compassion, but the rapes should be prosecuted and the rapists punished.
Joan
"So rapes of native Alaskan women should not be addressed or prosecuted, as it is a 'very sensitive and private subject'? That makes no sense..."
That also reminds me a lot of "when it happens to men it's political, when it happens to women it's cultural."
"...All rapes are 'very sensitive and private subjects' and should be handled with understanding and compassion, but the rapes should be prosecuted and the rapists punished."
Right on! Also, some rape victims do themselves feel uncomfortable prosecuting, but that means (a) the prosecution systems available should be improved and (b) until they're improved, the decision of whether or not to prosecute should be up to the individual victim herself or himself. It does not mean the decision of whether or not to prosecute should be left up to whomever in the victim's community has the most privileges.
I understand that a culture might want to hide its dirty secrets and that some in the community value preserving their dwindling numbers in lieu of dispatching justice, but I don't think that means we should just ignore it until/if they decide to be more open about it. But that's not really what I want to get into in this comment.
Is it just me, or are some of the comments somewhat silencing, telling the poster that they don't understand or that someone's already written about Alaskan women? Since when hasn't Feministing rehashed topics? And what more does the poster claim to be doing, other than bringing attention to an issue?
L. Schlumpf comment was definitely silencing.
She had a great chance to do some educating but tried to shut down the conversation.
But there is a lot of that around here. People try and pull someones feminist credentials all the time, declare ideas outdated, claim people should not be here, etc.
"I understand that a culture might want to hide its dirty secrets and that some in the community value preserving their dwindling numbers in lieu of dispatching justice, but I don't think that means we should just ignore it until/if they decide to be more open about it. But that's not really what I want to get into in this comment.
"Is it just me, or are some of the comments somewhat silencing, telling the poster that they don't understand or that someone's already written about Alaskan women? Since when hasn't Feministing rehashed topics? And what more does the poster claim to be doing, other than bringing attention to an issue?"
Not exactly silencing - silencing-wannabe seems more like it, since everyone commenting is saying more here instead of deleting what vanessacoleman said from here.
I'm actually cool with CynthiaJSmith referring to what Jessica Yee's already written about Alaskan women. If I ever actually post here instead of just commenting on other people's posts I would welcome and appreciate citations and reminders of sources I missed.
At the same time, I totally agree about the rehashing!
This is horrible. It reminds me of the monologue “Crooked Braid” from the Vagina monologues.
"...When I first read the title for the piece, 'The Land Where Rapists Go Free', I thought the piece would be on the topic of victims of
rape in a low-income country such as the Congo but instead found myself reading about this horrible injustice here in the US...
"...It was so amazing to me while reading this post, that such breaches of justice were occuring in this very country and I had no clue
that they even existed...
"...It is appalling to think that in 21st century America we still live in a society where ethnicity can be such a determinant of health
outcomes..."
Thanks for pointing out what we have in common instead of othering the land and the victims!
Oops, sorry about the extra line breaks I forgot to remove!
hey thanks for all the comments.
i really wish that i had done a bit more research and looked up the post about jessica yee- thanks for bringing that up and thanks for crossposting it!
hey thanks for all the comments.
Thanks for bringing that up and thanks for crossposting it!
I also appreciated the comments about the interracial crimes and added sosme information to the article at Amplify (http://www.amplifyyourvoice.org).
hey thanks for all the comments.
Thanks for bringing up Jessica Yee and for crossposting her work. I was reading about her and she is quite an amazing young activist.
I also appreciated the comments about the interracial crimes and added sosme information to the article at Amplify (http://www.amplifyyourvoice.org).
Thanks for cross-posting some of Jessica Yee's links.
Here is the one she wrote though about Alaska Native women for Feministing: http://www.feministing.com/archives/009218.html
Now if only Feministing would actually ask her to write for them!
Thank you!
Long time reader, first time commenter!
I'm currently working at NAWHERC and wanted to thank you for posting about the organization and for encouraging people to support the important work NAWHERC does on a local, state and national level. There are lots of great organizations, in South Dakota and beyond, that are providing direct services and advocacy (in addition to a plethora of general community services and organizing) to end violence against Native women and children.
I hope this post is the just the beginning of more extensive coverage of Native women's organizing, and that Feministing will continue to provide readers with information about the great work being done to end violence against Native women (and the amazing people who dedicate so much of their energy to this cause.)
On a more personal note, I admire and am inspired by Jessica Yee's writings and activism. Thanks so much for cross-posting her articles.
-l.