When Will the Violence Stop By: Rachel Valle

When Will the Violence Start

By: Rachel Valle

The Justice Department reports that one in three native women are raped in her lifetime, with many others too demoralized to say anything. Erdrich then goes on to talk about the red shawls the native women wear at the powwows, to recognize just how many people have been sexual abused on these reservations. Although to the outer eye, these are nothing more than a token of regret for these women to the natives of the reservations they are so much more. High rape has become a very modern problem in these areas and the US government has yet to take any actions towards fighting it. More than 67% of abuse cases get declined by federal prosecutors, and since the government has made it so the tribal courts can not try a non-indian man putting justice to these abusers is nearly impossible.1 Therefore many sexual predators flee to these areas to abuse without a high chance of being caught or stopped. Indians had the right to try these non-native men until 1978 when it was taken away by the Federals , because they felt the men did not have a fair trial going into court with a jury of all natives. This a frightening matter as more than 80% of the rape that occurs on these reservations are executed by non-native men. Murdoch stats that the young women she talked to said it is disheartening to have to walk around in your village seeing your attacker everyday walking as a free man and knowing that he has probably raped up to five other girls from your village as well.2 The rape in these tribes have gotten so bad that the police have actually recommended that the women stop reporting them because there is a very high chance nothing will get done about it, to put this into perspective 35% of rapes are reported by black women, 32% reported by white women and only 13% reported by Indian women, even the people who are activist on the stop rape movement in these areas have told the women to stop reporting as it only causes them more trouble and heartache.1

To top it all off when these women do have the guts to go get themselves examined they often are turned away at the local clinics at well because the Indian nurses on duty do not have the training or the materials to perform a rape kit on the victims.2  These nurses do not even have a camera to record the damages done to these women’s bodies, making it hard to record the attack. However, not all has been lost during these troubling times for these women. The US Congress has recently motioned to put the Violence Against Women Act back into motion , if this happens it could save many women their lives and lead to these acts decreasing greatly on the reservation. The Violence Against Women Act stats that the reservations will once again be able to charge the non-native attackers in their tribal courts regardless of who makes up the jury.1 This means that the number of attackers who flee to these areas to marry or make partners out of the native women of these reservations just to sexual abuse them will decrease significantly. However, the hard part will be getting these women to look pass their fears and realize that by reporting these perverts something can and will be down to help bring a little more security to them and their families, and will they will no longer have to feel so hopeless as a victim knowing they helped take their attacker off the reservation and away from their family and friends.