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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
Jul
29
Native American Rape Victims Go Ignored by Authorities
Filed Under discrimination, human rights, misogyny, race and racism, rape and sexual assault, sexism, violence against women and girls, women’s health | Posted by Cara |
NPR has an excellent and horrifying story about how rape cases on Native American lands go all but ignored by authorities.
On Standing Rock, getting an officer to respond to a call for help can mean waiting for days or even months. The reservation’s only women’s shelter is still waiting for police to come after someone cut all of their phone lines two months ago.
The shelter’s director, Georgia Littleshield, can attest firsthand to the lack of police response. When her daughter’s boyfriend, a non-native, broke her daughter’s nose, her daughter filed a report and attached statements and photos from the doctors. But when Littlefield called special investigators the next morning, an officer told her that her injury was not considered a broken bone, but broken cartilage and that the case would not be prosecuted. [. . .]
A study from the Justice Department found that Native American women are two and half times more likely to be raped than other women. The majority of victims said they were raped by men from outside the reservation, according to a victimization survey. [. . .]
The health center does not have rape kits to collect the vital DNA evidence needed to prosecute attackers. They are also inadequately staffed and cannot spare an exam room for the hour it takes to complete the rape examination.
You really should read the whole thing. It’s heartbreaking, but you should read it.
We’ve all heard the stories about rape not being taken seriously by police forces. We’ve all heard about police not responding to cases of male violence against women. We’ve all heard stories about police ignoring male violence specifically against women of color. This is all of those stories, and several times worse. This is systematic, government sanctioned discrimination against a certain group of minority women. This is a free pass being given to men to keep raping and abusing women, so long as they are Native American.
I don’t know what else to say to someone who would deny that this is anything less than blatant racism and misogyny. In fact, I don’t really know what else there is to say, at all.
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“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
I heard this article on NPR in its entirety. I was struck by the story of one victim who stated she never reported her rape knowing that no one would ever help her. She went on to say that in her work as a bartender she has heard men bragging and describing the rapes they have committed against other women similar to what happened to herself. She stated simply with little affect, “I don’t ever say anything.” I often wonder when I attend church or sit on volunteer committees, how it is that so many Americans cannot understand that there is nothing safe, secure or civilized about this society. Below the very thinnest of veneers lies the hell of every nightmare right beside us. This victimized woman is a paradigm of women everywhere in our society. Because we are “Well Behaved Women” we too do not speak out against violence. We fail to recognize that it is so easy for any us to be raped or killed or brutalized. I don’t understand what comfort we derive from ignoring the costs of this countries economic/class structure that leaves so many so desperate, emotionally stunted and brutal. Please be awake, be aware, violence is not only happening on that tribal land. Its everywhere in this society.
I lived on non-pueblo land inside a pueblo for a year and a half, and if anything, we had the opposite problem, which is that the BIA cops would stop people looking even remotely suspicious, so that you could end up spending half an hour getting your plates run just because you decided to turn around in the parking lot of a closed business or stood around talking too long on pueblo land. But, other than the BIA cops (which maybe would not be the organization responding to a rape report), it really was a very long wait. One day, our neighbor’s house burned down, and I swear I spent 5 minutes just trying to get the person who answered the phone to understand my directions. And then it took so long for the fire fighters to arrive that we were in fear of our own property catching fire!