This is Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North and South Dakota. In February 2003, a 21-year-old woman was brutally raped and beaten by four men. At first she was brought to the Indian Health Service Hospital but later taken to a hospital in Bismarck, in critical condition. She spoke to police there, but sadly, died two weeks later. A year later, her case was closed and the perpetrators never identified. When Amnesty International contacted the Chief of Police there, they could not even find a record of that case. It was as if legally, it never happened. But for that young woman, it cost her her life.
More than one in three American Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped in her lifetime; they are 2.5 times more likely than any other American woman to be sexually assaulted.
This is because, before last week, perpetrators could basically rape with impunity due to exasperating jurisdiction issues between tribal, state, and federal levels. For example, tribal prosecutors cannot prosecute crimes committed by non-Natives, and 86% of these sexual assaults fall into this area.The confusion over which authority has jurisdiction leads to poor investigations or no response at all. Additionally, tribal law enforcement are often underfunded, and places like Standing Rock are such large territories, that there just aren't enough police. Within the Tribal Health Services, there are also no protocols for rape kits so there's no evidence for prosecution.
When Amnesty International released their report,
Maze of Injustice, their interviewees all said that they didn't know anyone in their community who had not experienced sexual violence.
This is a serious injustice, following a chain of human rights abuses against American Indians throughout history. Learning that there is a climate of impunity in the US, that sexual violence can be the norm--it's infuriating and terrifying.
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