Rape and Native Women

It breaks my heart each day I see another headline that reads "Girl Raped." It blows my mind, and how can such a headline even convey the horrors that take place during such a horrific act.

When I was browsing the internet for a current topic I was watching TV, and the case of the Steubenville football players who raped an unconscious teenage girl.  I wondered to myself….How many Native women suffer such fates? How often? How much? By whom?  BUT then I thought to myself if Non-Natives are not subject to tribal law, how much do they get away with such sexually depraved acts?

I came across this article( http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/opinion/native-americans-and-the-violence-against-women-act.html?_r=0) by one of my favorite Native authors--Louise Erdrich.  There is some light being shed on the abuse against native women and I know that the new VAWA that was passed in court has in it an inclusive clause that protects Native Women from Non-Native abusers—as if justice can come in the form of a court trial.  Either way, it’s still a move forward in the protection of Native women, and women in general.

However, rape was and still is a major issue facing Native women.

The following paragraph really upset me:

The Justice Department reports that one in three Native women is raped over her lifetime, while other sources report that many Native women are too demoralized to report rape. Perhaps this is because federal prosecutors decline to prosecute 67 percent of sexual abuse cases, according to the Government Accountability Office. Further tearing at the social fabric of communities, a Native woman battered by her non-Native husband has no recourse for justice in tribal courts, even if both live on reservation ground. More than 80 percent of sex crimes on reservations are committed by non-Indian men, who are immune from prosecution by tribal courts. (Louise Erdrich)

1 in every 3 Native women is raped over and over again through her life time…..80% of the rapes take place by Non-Native men.  HOLY SHIT!! What the fuck is wrong with a society that can let this type of thing take place? It blows my mind, and truly breaks my heart.  NO woman should be raped, and given the small population of Native women left 1/3 is WAY to much of a margin to let go unnoticed. 

I hope in the years to come that the VAWA will help bring down that 80% of Rape by non-Native men.  Even though I know justice in the form of a trial can never help a woman heal from such abuse. 

So I leave you with a proposal.  Help raise recognition, so Native women will no longer feel demoralized for the abuse against their bodies they suffer from.

No woman, specifically in this case No Native woman, should go unheard.