Combatting Violence Against Native and Indigenous Women

Written by: Nora Smith

Website resource photo was taken from: https://www.nyscadv.org/what-we-do/domestic-violence-indigenous-peoples.html

Domestic violence and sexual assault crimes committed against Native American and Indigenous women has been an ongoing problem in the United States. The history of colonization and racism in the United States has put both Native men and women in an extremely vulnerable position when it comes to assault and violence, with more than four in five American Indian and Alaskan Native peoples experiencing violence in their lifetime (NYSCADV.org). Native American women are particularly subjected to violence and abuse both within and outside of their communities. 34% of Native women are victims of rape and 39% of Native women have experienced domestic violence within their lifetime (NCAI.org). Native American women experience both violent and sexual assaults at rates much higher than those of white women. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) have created a report on violence against Native and Indigenous women in the United States and as of February 2018, the report claims that Native women are 1.7 times more likely to have experienced violence in the last year, were 2 times as likely to experience rape, and were 3 times more likely to get murdered than non-Hispanic white women (NCAI.org). These statistics prove that there is a major problem for Native American women as victims of sexual assault and violence, and that this problem could be linked to the ideas and opinions surrounding their racial identity in the United States. This can be seen in the fact that these assaults are often not being committed by those within the Native American community. The 2018 report by the NCAI goes on to say that 96 percent of the female Native American victims of violence and sexual assault said the crimes were done at the hands of non-Native perpetrators, while 21 percent had experienced intraracial violence (NCAI.org, 2018).

Issues that have been prevalent throughout the history of the United States such as colonization, racism, and misogyny have all played a role in subjugating Native American women into a position that has made them especially vulnerable to violence and assault. These factors can help explain both interracial and intraracial violence against Native American women. A few examples of historical violence against the Native American population in the United States includes warfare over issues such as land disputes, the senseless massacring of hundreds of Native men, women, and children (such as with the Sand Creek Massacre), and the institution of boarding schools for Native American children that utilized violence as punishment (Dennis, Hirschfelder, and Flynn, 2016). Putting these sorts of events and conditions into perspective, an organization known as Futures Without Violence released a facts sheet on violence against Native American women that stated “violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women directly relates to historical victimization… Consequently, American Indians and Alaska Natives today are believed to suffer from internalized oppression and the normalization of violence” (futureswithoutviolence.org). Violence against Native American women committed by perpetrators outside of the Native American community has been happening since colonization first began in the United States and was fueled by European ideologies rooted in racism and misogyny. However, this long history of violence committed against Native Americans in general is thought to have led to a normalization of violence within the community altogether, and was noted as a possible explanation for the intraracial violence committed by Native men against Native women.

There are steps being taken to curb violent crimes and assaults against women of the Native American community. The New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NYSCADV) website mentions how in 2013 Congress reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and “restored tribal courts’ ability to exercise ‘special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction’ over domestic and dating violence crimes or violation of protections orders regardless of the defendant’s Native or non-Native status” (NYSCADV.org). However, the same website goes on to say “The reauthorized VAWA went into effect in 2015 and recognizes tribes’ sovereign power to investigate, prosecute, convict, and sentence both Indians and non-Indians who assault Indian spouses or dating partners or violate a protection order in Indian Country. It does not, however, cover sexual assault or rape committed by non-Natives who are strangers to their victims, nor does it protect Native American children who are victims of abuse or assault” (NYSCADV.org). This shows that the VAWA’s main focus is on domestic violence and women and does not allow tribes to prosecute random instances of violence and sexual assault crimes against Native women, men, and children. This proves that there is still much more work that needs to be done when it comes to passing legislation that allows tribes to deal with these crimes. Although federally recognized tribes are seen as sovereign nations in the United States, there are still many obstacles and laws that have been federally imposed that make it difficult for tribes to carry out and punish those non-Natives who commit crimes on Native territory (NYSCADV.org).

There are smaller scale efforts being made to help Native American women that have been victims of assault, such as the NYSCADV’s Domestic Violence and Indigenous People’s Project that “provides training, listening sessions, and resources related to Indigenous Peoples for domestic violence service provider programs of New York State” (NYSCADV.org). This project focuses on helping Iroquois and Algonquian women tribal members in the state of New York. For example, they may use visuals such as the Cultural Wheel to explain the forms of abuse that Native American women experience. It teaches that cultural abuse can be used to isolate the person from their native community. It might come in the form of belittling the victim’s traditions, practices and beliefs, controlling their interactions with other members of the community, or preventing them from participating in ceremonies and gatherings (NYSCADV.org). The NYSCADV can use things such as the Cultural Wheel to help Native women understand their circumstances better.

As we can see with the statistics mentioned in the beginning, violence committed against Native American women is a large-scale ongoing problem. There have been congressional efforts made with laws such as VAWA along with small scale organizational efforts made such as NYSCADV’s Domestic Violence and Indigenous People’s Project to try to aid in the situation, but there is still much more that needs to be done, such as extending the VAWA’s guidelines to include all types of violence against all Native American peoples, not just domestic violence against women. It should include violence against Native men and children, and include violence that is not necessarily committed by an intimate partner or spouse. When it comes to looking at the issues at hand, we must consider the historical background of Native peoples in the United States. Outsiders have not had the same experiences as Native Americans, such as with the forced relocation of Native children to boarding schools in the 20^th century, and we need to put those sorts of conditions and situations into consideration when it comes to trying to understand things such as Native men committing intraracial violence against Native women. There are many different contributing factors on the status of the statistics of violence against Native American women such as racism, misogyny, and a violent colonial history. In our current timeline, laws, state organizations, and tribes are making more efforts to try to heal those wounds from the past that have spilled over to the present day for the betterment of the Native American people altogether.

Sources:

Dennis, Yvonne W., Arlene Hirschfelder, and Shannon R. Flynn. 2016. Native American Almanac. Canton: Visible Ink Press.

National Congress of American Indians. Violence Against Women. http://www.ncai.org/policy-issues/tribal-governance/public-safety-and-justice/violence-against-women

National Congress of American Indians. VAWA 2013’s Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction Five-Year Report. http://www.ncai.org/resources/ncai_publications/vawa-2013-s-special-domestic-violence-criminal-jurisdiction-five-year-report

Futures Without Violence. “The Facts on Violence Against American Indian/Alaskan Native Women.” American Indian/Alaska Native Health. https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/aian/

New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Domestic Violence and Indigenous Peoples. https://www.nyscadv.org/what-we-do/domestic-violence-indigenous-peoples.html