Here is the page that includes the report summary and links to the full document and related resources, and here is a quote from the executive summary.
One in three Native American or Alaska Native women will be raped at some point in their lives. Most do not seek justice because they know they will be met with inaction or indifference.
Barriers to justice
The majority of perpetrators go unpunished as many Indigenous women never report the abuse committed against them, while those who do report it find other barriers to justice. The US government has created a complex maze of federal, state and tribal authorities. As a consequence, Indigenous women are being denied justice.Failure to act
The US authorities have not only failed to respond adequately to the threats faced by Indigenous women, but federal policies and practices have actually denied Native American and Alaska Native women protections available to other women in the USA.Urgent action is needed to stop sexual violence against Indigenous women in the USA. But action must be shaped by understanding, not prejudice; by fact, not assumption. Indigenous women’s organizations and tribal authorities have brought forward concrete proposals to help stop the abuse against Indigenous women – but the federal government has failed to act.
Wow, that report is stunning.
I wasn’t surprised that American Indian women are more likely to be raped than other women in the US; I had already known that from other reading I’ve done. But some of the anecdotal evidence the reports quotes is appalling.
Also news to me is the possibility that the majority of the people raping American Indian women are non-Native American men.
Since the data they’re referring to in the above paragraph comes from sources that probably undercount acquaintance and intimate rape, I think it’s possible the 86% is an exaggeration. But the report also reports other studies:
Although there’s a myth of rapists being driven out of control by their desires, what the high rate of non-Native men raping Native women implies, possibly, is that rapists assess risk and are more likely to choose victims who lack good access to reliable courts and police. Not that the police and courts anywhere are great for rape victims, but from what this report says Native American rape victims face even higher hurdles than other rape victims.
Due to a Supreme Court decision, tribal authorities can’t arrest and try non-Natives — not even those who commit crimes against Native Americans on tribal land. So if the state or federal police aren’t seen as willing to take rape against Native American women seriously — and they aren’t, from what this report says — there is simply no Native authority a woman who’s been raped by a non-Native man can go to. That alone may explain why Native women are apparently preferred targets for some non-Native rapists. (One of the things the AI report calls for is an expansion of authority and funding for tribal police and courts).
The extent to which the Federal government has screwed over the ability of Tribal police and courts to enforce the law is another thing I wasn’t aware of before reading this report. In Alaska, the federal government shifted responsibility to law enforcement on Tribal lands from the Tribes to concurrent authority between the tribes and the state, but the Alaskan government responded by assuming the tribes no longer had criminal enforcement authority. Meanwhile, the federal government cut off funding of tribal judicial systems in Alaska, but didn’t provide any increased funding to the Alaskan state government to fund the state government taking over those duties.
Anyhow, I’m just rambling now… thanks for linking this.
Who would have guessed that Native American women were at such risk? I don’t find it surprising that the majority of the rapists are reported to be non-Native men. It is very much against the culture of Native people to treat women that way. Good post on a sad but interesting report.
On the interracial rapes….a few thoughts.
1. There is a very high rate of intermarriage among Native American women. So I’m guessing interracial dating is also common, which could lead to greater incidences of interracial acquaintance rapes.
2. The level of residential segregation for Native women is much lower than that of white & black women. It is likely lower than that for Latinas, but probably equal to or higher than Asians.
3. I read a study in the 1990s indicating that the rate of interracial victimization is very high for Native Americans across the board. In fact, if I remember correctly, Native Americans are more likely to be victimized by whites than other Native Americans, which stand in strong contrast with blacks and whites where most crime is intraracial. (I don’t know about the data for Latinos and Asians)
I also think we should keep in mind the history and sexual imagery of Native women as another factor that has encouraged sexual exploitation.
In fact, I knew black women and Native American women were much more likely to be sexually assaulted than white women. Does anybody know about the data Latinas and Asians?
Oh yeah, one more thing….I think poverty is a huge factor in this. Native women have the highest poverty of any race gender group.
We’re not seen as people. Hell, we arent even seen as women. We’re squaws or indian princesses or whatever the hell else fuckwits come up with. None of the names ever mean human.
It seems like this is an extension of the idea that men rape the powerless… I feel like I should know, but do poor white women get raped more frequently than rich white women?
Do people feel that the history of white men raping native american women has created a meta-narrative where white men see native american women as inherently rapable — to a greater extent than that meta-narrative functions with latinas and black women? I don’t know why Native American women would be more subject to that meta-narrative than black and latina women, unless it’s correlated to other narratives about disgust that are prevalent in our culture about black women, and it seems to me that a lot of people I know don’t really understand the history of latin america in regard to rape.
I think the point about rapists deliberately targeting victims who are unlikely to be able to successfully seek justice is a really good one, and it points to the need for more and better prosecution of rapists and a continued attempt to change the culture so as to increase the number of reported cases of rape.
In a way it’s a hopeful thing . . . it demonstrates that prosecution is (or at least may well be) a deterrent. Now we have to make the deterrent work.
Mandolin said, “Native American women would be more subject to that meta-narrative than black and latina women, unless it’s correlated to other narratives about disgust that are prevalent in our culture about black women,..”
I think the answer has to be at least partly related to residential segregation patterns, which creates more “access” to native women.
This number jumped out at me – because it means that 42% of the perpetrators were identified as being native American. Having grown up in Oklahoma, that sounded a bit suspect to me, so I checked out the census info – Native Americans make up less than 15% of the population there, and that is self-identified in the Census and including everyone who put down more than one race. Of course the percentage is going to vary considerably from area to area, but in only a few counties is the NA population over 25%, and most of those just barely. The only county that approaches 42% has a population of less than 25,000.
The Amnesty Report doesn’t give any context to that 58% number – how many cases that was based on, what part of the state that social agency serves, how it was determined that the perpetrators were NA or not. I’d hesitate to run very far with that number, myself, and honestly I wonder at Amnesty putting it in the report without any further context (and this I say as someone who has been active in that organization for more than two decades).
About the intermarriage / residential segregation angles that Rachel S. brought up – I think you are are on the right track. First of all, many people don’t realize that there are no Indian Reservations in Oklahoma, aside from the famously underground Osage Reservation (the tribe held on to mineral rights during allotment, when the tribes were forced to divide up their communal lands). I know the Cherokee tribe, e.g. does have some public housing projects, but by and large Native Americans don’t live in exclusive communities or neighborhoods, at least in areas I am familiar with. I just checked out Wyandotte, a small town that came to mind as being mostly NA, but it is only 35% NA. (Racial segregation for blacks, on the other hand, is pervasive and obvious in the parts of the state that I am familiar with.) The Curtis Act was quite successful in that regard, not only dividing up the land into individual allotments but also (at least in some areas) making sure that the Indian allotments were not concentrated in what could be Indian communities.
About the intermarriage – yes. And significantly, it’s not just a recent trend. For those wondering who all those “intermarried whites”on the Cherokee rolls came from, well, before allotment the most straightforward way for a white businessman to get licensed to open shop in Indian Territory was to marry into a tribe. But that is just a small part of it. I don’t think most people where I grew up would even consider NA / white to be interracial dating or marriage.
This explains part of the rape by non-Natives. 56% of married NA women are outmarried.
http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t19/tab01.pdf
I find it extremely interesting that many of the stories on this report (HuffPo and NPR, to name just two) completely missed the angle of non-NDNmen attacking NDN women. I agree with some of the previous posters that part of the reason for white-on-Indian sexual assault has to do with the white cultural meme of Indian women as “exotic princesses” and sex objects. Notice, for example, that almost everyone who claims to have “some Indian blood” claims it through a female relative. Of all the people who have ever excitedly told me that they, too, are Cherokee, not one of them has claimed to have a great-great-great-grandFATHER who was a “Cherokee prince.”
Also worth a look are some of the truly vile, despicable and racist comments left on this article at HuffPo, a supposedly progressive blog:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/comments/2007/04/24/46744
Really makes you realize how culturally acceptable anti-NDN bigotry still is in mainstream society, as compared to racism against virtually any other group.
Here is another set of data on interracial marriages
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/race/interractab1.txt
Unfortunately the most recent data in that table is from 1990 but it does show that NA men are almost as likely as NA women to outmarry, and the trend was clearly toward parity at that time. (A clear contrast to the black/white and Asian-PI/white trends over the same period, which both moved away from parity, but interestingly, in opposite directions.)
Donna, do you know if the table you linked to is available for smaller geographic areas? I’ve reached my frustration cap trying to dig info out of the census site.
Local Crank, the NPR story I heard emphasised repatedly that the perpetrators tended to be outsiders. In fact, rather than missing the angle as you claim, I’d say that *was* the overall angle of the story.
Also, about the “Indian Princess” ancestors – think about it. The white settlers who moved into Indian lands probably didn’t include a large number of unattached women. Plus, as I mentioned yesterday, white businessmen had an economic incentive to marry into the tribe during Indian Territory days. (Not to mention what happened when the Osage Nation became the Kuwait of their day in the 1920s.). Also, I suspect that, all other considerations aside, it was more accepted (among whites) for a white man to take an Indian wife than for a white woman to submit to a non-white husband. Yes, I’m using “take” and “submit” to point out that misogyny going hand in hand with both racism and opportunity means that there likely really are a lot more “Indian Princess” ancestors than “Indian Prince” ones. Just saying.
Ampersand said:
As I understand it, the federal government has created a jurisdictional black hole for rape victims on tribal lands. The state courts don’t have jurisdiction over crimes committed on tribal lands. The tribal courts don’t have jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-NA’s. I believe there’s a statute giving the federal courts jurisdiction over state-law crimes committed on tribal lands, but it doesn’t seem likely that the justice department has made prosecuting these crimes a particularly high priority (and someone has pointed out on another website that a number of the fired U.S. attorneys come from states with high NDN populations).
The Local Crank said:
You’re absolutely right, but let’s not be too hasty to give the “NDN” men a free pass. Where have the tribal leaders been? Have they been lobbying Congress to give the tribal courts criminal jurisdiction over non-NA’s who commit crime on tribal lands? Have they been calling on the justice department to devote more effort to prosecuting these crimes (and if the department needs some ideas on where to come up with the money, how about spending a little less on enforcing “bankruptcy fraud”?) Clearly, it’s the responsiblity of the rapists not to commit rape, but it’s the responsibility of everyone to make sure that those who do rape are tried, and if convicted, appropriately punished.
As for more wannabe’s having a Cherokee “princess” in their family tree than having a Cherokee “prince, ” (leaving aside the fact that there were no princes/princesses in traditional Cherokee society) isn’t it true that in the 18th and 19th centuries (when most people’s “great-great-great-grandparents” would have been born), marriages between NA women and non-NA men were more common than the reverse?
Paul said, “…isn’t it true that in the 18th and 19th centuries (when most people’s “great-great-great-grandparents” would have been born), marriages between NA women and non-NA men were more common than the reverse?”
I fairly certain this is the case. In the earlier years of this country white men very strictly controlled intermarriage for white women, where as white men had much greater freedom to intermarry. And white men were also less likely to be ostracized if they did intermarry; thus the negative consequences were not as great.
Nevertheless, the exotic sexual stereotype of American NDN women is pervasive (similar to Asian American women in my view). I certainly know the white men I grew up with had this mentality. They also had the belief that NDN women were subservient, which is even more interesting considering the American Indian population was very small.
‘You’re absolutely right, but let’s not be too hasty to give the “NDN” men a free pass.’
No, you’re right. Indian men, especially from traditionally matrileneal, matrilocal and matriarchal tribes like the Cherokee, should be in the forefront of efforts to root out this kind of foul, reprehensible behavior. And any Indian man who commits such a crime deserves to have the full weight of tribal law descend on his head.
‘isn’t it true that in the 18th and 19th centuries (when most people’s “great-great-great-grandparents” would have been born), marriages between NA women and non-NA men were more common than the reverse?’
Absolutely true and that was my point, though I didn’t make it clear enough. White notions of racial superiority will not admit that a white woman might be attracted to an Indian man (though Chief John Ross and Elias Boudinot of the Cherokee, to name but two, both had white wives). Thus, “family legends” are almost always of Indian women falling for (and sometimes saving a la Pocahontas) white men.
“were no princes/princesses in traditional Cherokee society”
True and that’s something of a running joke among Cherokee. For example, there’s a great tee-shirt you can buy in the gift shop next to the Cherokee Nation complex in Tahlequah that says, “I’m not a Cherokee princess, I’m Queen of the Universe.”
From what I’ve read, NDN woman/white man unions were also less problematic for matrilineal tribes like the Cherokee during that period.
The post I wrote yesterday seems to have evaporated (maybe in the spam filter?)
Don’t have time to rewrite it and find the links again, but quickly let me mention that preferences/stereotypes/acceptability aside, in areas where white settlers were moving into Indian lands (e.g. Oklahoma) there weren’t a lot of unattached white women, compared to the number of men looking for partners or spouses. Add to that the economic incentives – by far the easiest way for a white businessman to get a license in Indian Territory was to marry into the tribe – and the unfortunate success of the allotment rules that purposely scattered the Indian allotments among lands reserved for white settlers, in order to promote assimilation and prevent Indian communities from forming.
It should be taken care of now, unless there’s another one out there I’ve missed!
—Myca
Matriarchal what now? Proof of that claim, please?
You may find the following comments by David Cornsilk (a well-known Cherokee genealogist and lay advocate on behalf of the Cherokee Freedmen) of interest:
“You should read the book, “Cherokee Women,” by Theda Perdue, professor of history at the University of Western [sic] North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Cherokees were a traditionally matriarchal, matrilineal and matrilocal tribe. Clans and property passed through the women and children were the sole property of the women and thier clan. The women’s council, which functioned independently of the national council dominated by men, had its own powers, including the right to veto war and determine the fate of war captives. Children were of little concern to the father, as his responsibility would be directed toward the care of his sister’s children, who shared his clan. Following European colonization and forced and voluntary assimilation by Cherokees, patrilineal descent became important, including destruction of the clan system, inheritance through the father and surnames derived from the father was introduced to the tribe. However, Cherokee women did continue to hold onto an important role in the traditional Cherokee households, where clans continue to be inherited from the mother and a form of matriarchal society exists around elder Cherokee women.”
http://www.afrigeneas.com/forume/index.cgi?noframes;read=12746
Subservient, my ass.
Amnesty released a similar report last year about First Nations women in Canada. Young First Nations women in Canada are five times more likely to die of violence than all other groups of women. Approximately 500 First Nations women are currently missing in Canada – they’ve just disappeared, and there has been little action on the part of the police to find them.
Amnesty’s starting page for the Stolen Sisters campaign is here
A summary of the report can be found here (warning: it’s a pdf).
There’s a huge difference between “not subervient” and “matriarchal.”
That was more or less what I was expecting you to provide as proof. There are a lot of valid academic critiques of the kind of passage you’re quoting.
Women had more power in many native american societies than we are accustomed to them having in other societies. That does *not* make them matriarchal.
(People confuse the heck out of matriarchal and matrilineal, for instance.)
‘Matriarchal what now? Proof of that claim, please?…
(People confuse the heck out of matriarchal and matrilineal, for instance.)
There’s a huge difference between “not subervient” and “matriarchal.”’
matrilineal means descent through the mother. Matriarchal does NOT mean “rule solely by women.” However, given that nearly all domestic authority rested with the mother and her family, I think it applies. But we may be getting bogged down by labels here, which is completely besides the point and off-thread.
“There are a lot of valid academic critiques of the kind of passage you’re quoting.”
Not that you necessarily intended it that way, but your statement seems to imply that “academic critiques” (almost all of which are produced by white academics) are somehow more valid than the traditional history of the Cherokee themselves. That’s ethno-centric and I don’t accept it. Given a choice between what my granny told me and what somebody at Harvard wrote for their dissertation, I have to go with granny. If you must have validation by white people as proof, there are any number of descriptions of Cherokee society by early white invaders and almost all make reference to what they referred to as a “petticoat government.” The history of my tribe makes it clear that “War Women” and “Beloved Women” wielded authority over the both the civil and the military governments (which were always separate) and maintained the right to veto decisions by male chiefs. Indeed, it is impossible to understand pre-Invasion Cherokee society without understanding both the clan structure and the central role of women. It was only after contact with whites that Cherokee society became more patriarchal in nature, a pattern that has been repeated in other tribes throughout Turtle Island. Now, to digress back to the topic, I think violence against women, at least for some tribes, was (like smallpox and racism) a foreign concept with which Indians were infected post-Invasion.
“The women’s council, which functioned independently of the national council dominated by men, had its own powers, including the right to veto war and determine the fate of war captives.”
That sounds an awful lot like a society where men run things, and women have a voice (and even on a veto on some decisions) but not real power. The men’s council ran the tribe, and sought women’s advice on some things. A wiser patriarchy, perhaps, but a patriarchy.
Matriarchy does imply rule (or at least equal representation) in the public sphere by women.
I don’t really want to get engaged in a semantics debate with you. Can we say that women had a great deal of power in the domestic sphere, and a kind of limited power over (but not in) the public sphere that did not involve a gender reversal of the kind of dominance we mean when we reference patriarchy?
Yeah, that’s how I’ve always heard it described.
*
Whee! I’m an idiot.
I only brought this up because I thought I saw a claim upthread that native american men couldn’t possibly be asked to stop raping native american women because native american men were oppressed by all those mean native american matriarchies. It was on this basis that I was trying to attack the concept of matriarchies in indigenous populations, because it seemed to me that the claim was tapping a myth of populations where gender relations are just a black and white flip of what patriarchies look like.
Anyway, I appear to have entirely hallucinated that claim. So, this would be me, backing down and apologizing. Sorry!
I’m deleting what I had posted here because while I was composing it, there was an interesting exchange between Mandolin and the Local Crank, and I don’t really have anything of value to add to the conversation.
“Can we say that women had a great deal of power in the domestic sphere, and a kind of limited power over (but not in) the public sphere that did not involve a gender reversal of the kind of dominance we mean when we reference patriarchy?”
In the immortal words of Senator Joe Biden: Yes.
“I only brought this up because I thought I saw a claim upthread that native american men couldn’t possibly be asked to stop raping native american women because native american men were oppressed by all those mean native american matriarchies.”
Okay, makes sense now. My original point was that it’s even worse for Indian men (as opposed to yonegv, white men) to victimize Indian women given many tribe’s histories of gender relations.
Why hold NA men (or women) to a higher moral standard than non-NA men or women? Perhaps from the victim’s point of view being raped by someone in your “group” is worse than being raped an “outsider”; that’s a question I would leave to others who are better qualified to answer it. But even if it is, that really has nothing to do with a man’s moral obligation not to rape any woman under any circumstances (and I really don’t think you disagree with that statement).
“Why hold NA men (or women) to a higher moral standard than non-NA men or women?”
Because they should know better. Because their cultural background (at least in some tribes) is to honor women and consider them equals, not treat them as chattel property, as it is in historical Euro-American culture. Not that this cultural baggage makes white men any less culpable if they engage in sexual violence, of course.
“But even if it is, that really has nothing to do with a man’s moral obligation not to rape any woman under any circumstances (and I really don’t think you disagree with that statement).”
You are correct, sir.
Hey, 86% of the rapists are non-Native men, so NA men are accountable for 14% of the rapes. They should be held to the same standard but it makes less sense when men oppress their own people.
“They should be held to the same standard but it makes less sense when men oppress their own people.”
That’s an interesting point. Are there any statistics regarding how often persons are sexually assaulted by a person of another race in general? Not just for NDNs? I’m curious to know the answer, given how race and gender often intersect.
Only 14% of the rapists were NDN so most of the responsiblity is on non-NDNs. 56% of the spouses of NDN women are non-NDN which contributes to the high non-NDN rate.
I dunno but about 90% of rapists of black women are black men.
I have been doing research on sex slaves in america and I found the numbers was low for navtive americans, I am a half breed has it is put and didn’t believe the figures was correct. And it isn’t, natives aren’t taken into account and I am trying to change that and get some help were it is needed.
One question I do have is that has very many people tryed teaching the young girls self defense at a very early age this well help. I was raise to have trust and we need to change that starting very young, teach your children to be more cautious around people that aren’t family, don’t leave your drink or food along keep it insight at all times have your soda or beer from a can only this way no drugs can be added. never be along with someone you just meet alwas have a friend close by. I’m working on sending some help.