Amnesty Report on Sexual Violence Against Indigenous Women

Amnesty International has just issued an excellent report on the impact of sexual assault on indigenous American women. While much progress has been made in naming and addressing the problem of sexual assault against women in general (albeit with much remaining to accomplish), the specific harms and context relative to American Indian and Alaska Native tribes is rarely addressed and little understood. This report goes a long way in addressing these issues. The introductory editorial for the report begins with this quote from activist Sarah Deer,

“The right to exist in a world free from violence is a basic tenet in many indigenous cultures and governments. The epidemic of sexual violence perpetrated against Native American women in the United States reflects a fundamental breakdown in the cultural and legal norms that have served to provide protection to Native women from time immemorial.â€?

In addition, AI has posted an excellent commentary by Monica Aleman which reads in part,

“For Indigenous women, historical and contemporary experiences of genocide, in combination with gender discrimination, give rise to multiple forms of gender-based violence. Today, global patterns of ongoing colonization and militarism; racism and social exclusion; and poverty-inducing economic and “development” policies generate human rights violations against Indigneous women, including gender-based violence.

These phenomena — like the multiple identities that shape each woman’s experience of violence and her strategies of resistance — are interactive and mutually reinforcing. This reality demands an “integrated analysis” of violence against women, one that recognizes both the near-universality of sexual violence and the specificity of violence perpetrated on the basis of distinct, but overlapping, identities, such as gender and Indigenous status.â€?

Aleman also points out one of the most fundamental problems in addressing sexual violence against indigenous women,

“(M)any Indigenous women do not live in atomized nuclear families; do not define community in a time-bound manner (but rather include both past and future generations in notions of community); and are targeted with sexual violence by state actors as much on the basis of their Indigenous status as on the basis of gender.�

She goes on,

“For many Indigenous Peoples, traditions of gender-egalitarianism that once mediated against sexual violence have been degraded by generations of colonization and assimilation. One result, documented by Indigenous women in Canada, the US and Australia, is a high level of sexualized violence within Indigenous communities. The global women’s movement has called for states to criminalize and punish acts of violence against women, including rape and other forms of sexual violence. Criminalization is a potentially effective strategy. But efforts to criminalize sexual violence must address the problem of enforcing States’ due diligence obligations toward members of communities that the state itself oppresses.

For example, in the United States and Australia, mandatory arrest policies in domestic violence cases have increased state intervention in, and control over, Indigenous women and their families (along with other women of color, immigrants, and poor women). Mandatory arrest policies have greatly increased the number of women arrested-most for acting in self-defense. Immigrant women-including many Indigenous women who lack immigration documents are threatened with deportation when arrested. The project of developing complementary processes to criminalization, such as restorative justice processes, and alternatives to criminalization strategies, such as political mobilization, is critical to guaranteeing the rights of Indigenous women and other women who endure violence by intimate partners and by the state.�

The report itself, “Maze of Injustice: The failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA� documents both the scope of the problem and the complex issues involved in addressing this particular circumstance of sexual violence. Here are some excerpts:

“Indigenous peoples in the USA face deeply entrenched marginalization – the result of a long history of systemic and pervasive abuse and persecution. Sexual violence against Indigenous women today is informed and conditioned by this legacy of widespread and egregious human rights abuses. It has been compounded by the federal government’s steady erosion of tribal government authority and its chronic under-resourcing of those law enforcement agencies and service providers which should protect Indigenous women from sexual violence. It is against this backdrop that American Indian and Alaska Native women continue to experience high levels of sexual violence, a systemic failure to punish those responsible and official indifference to their rights to dignity, security and justice.”

“Over the past decade, federal government studies have consistently shown that American Indian and Alaska Native women experience much higher levels of sexual violence than other women in the USA. Data gathered by the US Department of Justice indicates that Native American and Alaska Native women7 are more than 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women in the USA in general.8 A US Department of Justice study on violence against women concluded that 34.1 per cent of American Indian and Alaska Native women – or more than one in three – will be raped during their lifetime; the comparable figure for the USA as a whole is less than one in five.9 Shocking though these statistics are, it is widely believed that they do not accurately portray the extent of sexual violence against Native American and Alaska Native women.”

“In addition to underestimating the scale of sexual violence against Indigenous women, the limited data available does not give a comprehensive picture. For example, no statistics exist specifically on sexual violence in Indian Country and available data is more likely to represent urban than rural areas.13 Native American activists point to the importance of understanding the continuum of violence committed against Indigenous women in order to develop a strategic response to it.14 There is an urgent need for the US government to start collecting such data to inform planning and programmes to end sexual violence against Indigenous women.

While the available data does not accurately portray the extent of sexual violence against Native American and Alaska Native women, it does indicate that Native American and Alaska Native women are particularly at risk of sexual violence. According to the US Department of Justice, in at least 86 per cent of reported cases of rape or sexual assault against American Indian and Alaska Native women, survivors report that the perpetrators are non-Native men. The Department’s data on sexual violence against non-Native women, in contrast, shows that for non-Indigenous victims, sexual violence is usually committed within an individual’s own race. For example, in 2004, perpetrators in 65.1 per cent of rapes of white victims were white, and 89.8 percent of perpetrators in rapes of African American victims were African American.”

“It appears that Indigenous women in the USA may be targeted for acts of violence and denied access to justice on the basis of their gender and Indigenous identity. However, the root causes of discrimination and violence are often complex and invariably interconnected. Other factors which can also have a significant impact include the poverty and socioeconomic marginalization which many Indigenous women experience. Indigenous women described to Amnesty International how they experience contemporary sexual violence as a legacy of impunity for past atrocities.

Rape is always an act of violence, but there is evidence to suggest that sexual violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women involves a higher level of additional physical violence. Fifty per cent of American Indian and Alaska Native women reported that they suffered physical injuries in addition to the rape; the comparable figure for women in general in the USA is 30 per cent.”

“Contemporary scholars on traditional Native American and Alaska Native cultures have found that prior to colonization women often held esteemed positions in society. Available evidence indicates that violence against women was rare and, when it occurred, was often severely punished.22 Colonization and its aftermath profoundly changed gender roles among Indigenous peoples.”

“Indigenous women face multiple discriminations because of aspects of their identities. As a 2006 report on violence against Indigenous women by the International Indigenous Women’s Forum (FIMI) has noted, they are discriminated against not only as women “but as Indigenous Peoples. The latter does not merely add one more element to the burden of discrimination that Indigenous women face, but interacts with and changes the nature of the discrimination they contend with.”44 It is therefore extremely important that freedom from violence as defined by Indigenous women themselves informs, and where necessary transforms, the human rights discourse.”

Until I read this report, I did not have a clue about the shockingly complicated and by definition self-defeating jurisdictional issues that come into play when an Indigenous American woman is sexually assaulted: The criminal and jurisdictional authorities that are applicable vary according to a variety of factors and include (according to AI):

1. Tribal police, prosecutors and courts
Tribal police and prosecutors can investigate and prosecute all crimes committed by Indian individuals in areas including but not limited to Indian Country.
2. Tribal police and prosecutors have concurrent jurisdiction with federal police and prosecutors (or state police and prosecutors where Public Law 280 is applied) over major crimes by Indians on tribal land.
3. Tribal police and prosecutors cannot investigate61 and prosecute crimes committed by non-Native perpetrators on tribal land.
4. Tribal authority to sentence offenders is limited to a maximum of one year’s imprisonment and a US$5,000 fine for each offence.
5. Federal police and prosecutors
Federal police and prosecutors have exclusive jurisdiction to investigate62 and prosecute crimes committed by non-Native perpetrators in Indian Country (except where Public Law 280 is applied).
Federal police and prosecutors have concurrent jurisdiction with tribal police and prosecutors to investigate and prosecute major crimes committed by Indigenous people in Indian Country (except where Public Law 280 is applied).
6. State police and prosecutors
Where Public Law 280 is applied, state police and prosecutors have exclusive jurisdiction to investigate63 and prosecute crimes committed by non-Native perpetrators on tribal land.
Where Public Law 280 is applied, state police and prosecutors have concurrent jurisdiction with tribal police and prosecutors to investigate and prosecute crimes committed by Indigenous perpetrators on tribal land.
7. If a crime takes place on state land, state police and prosecutors have exclusive jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute.

The report offers the following recommendations for making substantive improvements to how this kind of under- and mis-addressed violence is addressed:

1. Develop comprehensive plans of action to stop violence against Indigenous women
2. End discrimination on the basis of Indigenous status and gender
3. Ensure accountability
4. Increase federal funding
5. End impunity for abusers
6. Ensure appropriate, effective policing
7. Ensure access to sexual assault forensic examinations
8. Provide support services for survivors
9. Ensure that prosecution and judicial practices deliver justice
10.Integrate a human rights perspective

Amnesty is to be congragulated for shedding light on this horrific violation of the human rights of so many women that has until now not received the attention that it needs.  the question is, will change in policies and attitudes now be forthcomng?