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On Friday, July 30, President Obama signed into law the Tribal Law and Order Act. It's a milestone in tribal law: legislation that works to protect Native women by supporting tribal sovereignty –- and thereby enhancing personal and sexual sovereignty, as well.
By the Numbers
One in every three Native American women will be raped at least once during her lifetime.
One in three.
At least once.
That's more than twice the rate for any other ethnic group in the U.S.
I've sat with some of these women, heard their stories, shared their pain and grief and fear. And I've shared their frustration with the knowledge that, some 86% of the time, their rapists were virtually untouchable.
Why?
Because with very few exceptions, tribal authorities have had no jurisdiction over non-Indian criminal offenders - and 86% of rapes of Native women are committed by non-Indian rapists (70% are white).
These numbers, of course, included only those rapes that are actually reported ... According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 70% of all rapes in the U.S. go unreported; other sources place the number as high as 84%. It's understandable that rape survivors often fear reporting the rape. They may be afraid the attacker will retaliate. They may fear that no one will believe them, or that they will be blamed for the assault. They may feel ashamed, humiliated, degraded, dishonored –- and fear that reporting it will only allow others to humiliate them further. And Native women's fears are exacerbated by historical tragedy and the knowledge that the system is not set up to help them.
Thanks to serious jurisdictional and cultural barriers, the under-reporting rate is undoubtedly much higher in Indian Country than elsewhere. It's difficult to report a crime -- especially one involving sexual violence -- to members of federal law enforcement agencies, when long historical experience has given Indian women and men alike abundant reason to distrust both the officers and the entities they represent. The ranks of police officers, investigators, and prosecutors are still filled disproportionately by white men, and cultural practices and spiritual requirements may deter many Native women from filing a report. Many Native women decline even to seek medical treatment, because too many Indian Health Service facilities have non-Native (often male) physicians lacking in cultural awareness, and a severe shortage of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE practitioners) exists all across Indian Country.
A Legacy of Conquest
In nearly 500 years of contact, rape has been part of a deliberate strategy of war, conquest, and annihilation of Native peoples. It was not uncommon for European settlers to assault Indian women on an individual (or group) basis, but more than that, rape was one of many weapons in the U.S. government's arsenal as it executed its policies of Manifest Destiny and Indian removal.
Of course, the written record is sparse with regard to rape of Native women. To the victors who kept the records, we were not important –- we weren't even fully human. But our memories are long, and our oral traditions strong, and the stories are handed down from generation to generation.
And occasionally, one finds documentation of "official" incidents. Anishinaabe author Speaks Lightning, in his forthcoming book on Indian Nations of the Southern Plains, notes:
"In 1868, Lt. Col. George Custer and the 7th Cavalry attacked a peaceful village on the Washita River in present-day Oklahoma. Following the battle, Custer invited all of the officers to select an Indian woman for sexual purposes. Custer took first choice and selected Mo-nah-see-tah, who was pregnant at the time. The women served as sexual slaves for some time (at least several months)."
This behavior was not unusual. To a patriarchal culture that regarded Indians as something less than human, the ability to rape Native women with impunity was seen as nothing more than their due –- the spoils of conquest and colonialism. And they violated, despoiled, and stole our grandmothers' bodies and souls in the same way that they violated, despoiled, and stole the body and soul of Akii, our Mother Earth.
Amplifying Violence
There's a significant and deadly difference in rape statistics as they relate to Native women:
- Among rape victims in the general population, 74% report being physically battered in additional ways during the commission of the rape. For Native women, that number jumps to 90%.
- Among the general population, 30% of rape victims report sustaining other physical injuries, in addition to the rape itself. Among Native
