A new Amnesty International report uncovers the disturbing truth that Native American women are twice as likely to be raped as non-Native women.  One in three indigenous women in the U.S. will be the victims of sexual assault at some point in their lives (although the statistic for women in general is not much better, one in four women in the U.S. will be assaulted in their lifetimes).

And as if that weren’t horrific enough, due to the complicated relationship of tribal criminal justice systems with U.S. state, local or federal criminal justice systems, many of the survivors of assaults never see their assailants brought to justice.  Tribal police often lack the resources to quickly respond to emergencies.  And survivors are sometimes confused about where to turn to for help—do they call the local police, the tribal police, state police…?

Much lip service has been paid to the crisis of domestic violence in Native American communities.  Even the deputy director of the Office of Justice Services for the Bureau of Indian Affairs seems to look inward to the behavior of people on reservations for an explanation—“'Domestic violence is up because of methamphetamine use on Indian lands,’ Chaney said. Rape, Chaney said, ‘was a problem long before methamphetamine, but methamphetamine is making it worse.’” 

However, according to the Justice Department’s own statistics, the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults against Native women—86%—are committed by non-Native, mostly white men.  As a 1978 Supreme Court ruling stated that tribal governments have no authority over individuals who are not a part of the tribe, much of the blame lies squarely in the laps of U.S. law enforcement for failing to prevent these crimes and to pursue the perpetrators.

Sexual violence was—and obviously, still is—an arm of colonization of indigenous peoples.  Although some violence in Native communities does come from within, for Native women, white supremacy is still the greatest threat.