The US's Systemic Failure to Address the Sexual Violence Crisis in Indigenous Communities

Trigger Warning: In this episode we talk about sexual violence against Indigenous women. If you need help or to talk to someone here are some resources you can call or chat: the StrongHearts Native Helpline at https://strongheartshelpline.org/ 1-844-7NATIVE, National Domestic Violence Hotline at https://www.thehotline.org/ 1-800-799-SAFE or the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) at https://www.rainn.org/ 1-800-656-HOPE.

1 in 2 Indigenous women have experienced sexual violence. Even with this staggeringly high statistic, it’s near impossible for Indigenous women to access the care and support needed. Juskwa Burnett, Indigenous Advocate, Moccasins of Hope, talks to us about her experience working with Indigenous sexual violence survivors and the ways in which sexual violence impacts her community. In addition, Tarah Demant, Interim National Director of Programs, Advocacy, and Government Affairs with Amnesty International USA, sits down to talk to us about healthcare and judicial barriers faced by Indigenous women as it relates to sexual violence and Amensty International USA’s new report detailing the barriers erected by the U.S. government when it comes to Alaska Native and American Indian women’s access to healthcare and support after experiencing disproportionate rates of sexual violence.

The United States’ response to this epidemic of sexual violence is confusing and maze-like, preventing Indigenous women from being able to access the healthcare they need or get justice for crimes committed. This complex system results in confusion and chaos, and further exacerbates the sexual violence epidemic faced by Indigenous women. The root of this problem is based in the US’s erosion of tribal authority, allowing for these extremely unfortunate circumstances to flourish, despite the fact that this country is obligated to protect Indigenous communities under the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People.

Amnesty International USA considers four sectors as related to the sexual violence epidemic experienced by Indigenous women: erosion of tribal authority, jurisdiction, healthcare and support services, and prosecution. Congress has created centuries of contradictory law regarding Indigenous peoples and Indigenous country, leading to an unnavigable system. A massive lack of resources for Indigenous tribal police limit their authority to respond to crimes. This means people’s rapes and assaults are not investigated and perpetrators face no repercussions for their crimes.

When Indigenous women require healthcare and services after experiencing sexual violence, many simply can’t access it. Health centers are located far away from villages and reservations, and Indian Health Services (IHS) is federally underfunded to a point where it is an open question whether or not a rape kit will be available. The justice system in Indian country is also massively federally underfunded and complicated, leading to a lack of prosecution for sexual violence crimes.

Links from this episode

Amnesty International USA on Twitter
Amnesty International USA on Facebook
The never-ending maze: continued failure to protect indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA
StrongHearts Native Helpline

Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast where we explore all things reproductive health, rights and justice. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and I'll be helping you stay informed around issues like birth control, abortion, sex education and LGBTQ issues and much, much more-- giving you the tools you need to take action and fight back. Okay, let's dive in.

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Jennie: Welcome to this week's episode of rePROs Fight Back. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So we have an extra big episode today. So we're gonna skip over my usual introduction and just gonna have a really quick trigger warning at the top instead of any usual chit chat. So this week's episode, we are going to be talking about sexual violence against Indigenous women and girls. So if this is something that you are not in a head space for today, please come back at a later time. Or if you just need to give this episode a pass, totally completely understand, do what you need to do to take care of yourself. I also wanna make sure that we're sharing some resources. If you need help or need someone to talk to or chat with online, there's some really amazing resources out there to give you the help you need. So let's start with StrongHeart's Native Helpline. It is a 24/7 safe, confidential and anonymous domestic dating and sexual violence helpline for Native Americans and Alaska Natives. They offer culturally appropriate support and advocacy. You can visit their website at strongheartshelpline.org, or you can call them at 1-844-7NATIVE. Another great resource is the National Domestic Violence Hotline. You can reach them thehotline.org, or you can call them at 1-800-799-SAFE. Or you can reach out to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network or RAINN, and you can visit them at their website rainn.org. Or you can call them at 1-800-656-HOPE. Please take care of yourselves if you need to leave, but I hope those of you are able to stay, enjoy this episode. It's a really important topic, and I'm just very grateful to have two amazing guests on to talk about it. First, we're talking about Amnesty International's recent reports, um, the Never Ending Maze: The Continued Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the US. And I'm gonna talk to my friend, Tarah Demant at Amnesty International. She is gonna do the second half of this interview to talk all about the report. And Tarah very nicely connected me with Juskwa Burnett, who does work with the native community on sexual violence within the community. And it was really wonderful to talk to her and hear her perspective. She was a contributor to the report and it was really important that we have an Indigenous voice speaking to start the conversation. So we'll turn to my conversation with Juskwa. And then after that, we will turn to my conversation with Tarah to talk about the report.

Jennie: Hi Juskwa. Thank you so much for being here today.

Juskwa: Well, it's good to be here with you too. I appreciate that [Tarah] called me.

Jennie: So before we get talking, do you maybe wanna take a minute and do a quick introduction of yourself and include your pronouns?

Juskwa: Well, I…she and her and… a quick introduction, I’m very, very fortunate. I've had varying and sundry things in my career, but mostly since I've been, um, in the United States, which has been for a little over 20 years. I came out of Canada. I've worked pretty much exclusively with Native American victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. And the majority of my clients have been female, but that's sort of, you know, really what I've been up to most of the time. I've, you know, taken breaks here and there and gotten training in some of the issues around the United States and the United State’s Indians, which are very similar to what Canada Indigenous people have, just with a little different support, it’s different in Canada than its down here. So that's kinda what I've been doing. I just steadily move along, forward when, uh, I work for an organization called Moccasins of Hope and we came up with the name thinking that if we, if we talk about moccasins on the ground, that's where we wanted to be. We wanted to be on the ground, working with women and children, victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, and being in the court system. And prior to that, I was in the court, quite a bit, both the state court and the tribal court. And I'm still, I'm not doing too much of that right now, but I'm planning on getting back into it again, I've spoken with a couple of the judges and I'm still in their court, so, I'll go do that.

Jennie: Great. So why don't we talk a little bit about, can you tell us about some of the work you're doing and how the issue of sexual violence impacts your community?

Juskwa: Well, I have seven tribes, six tribes really close in my area, and a lot of my work comes from referrals from social services or Indian Child Welfare offices. And what they're looking for mostly is support. And what I, what I'm finding is that even in a recent sexual assault victim, I would say nine times out 10, they've been sexually assaulted previously. And sometimes by adults or friends or their family from the time that they were children. And sometimes, more than one, one offender, that's probably one of the things that I, I find so frustrating and sad because it, what it does is it leads into all sorts of other things. And if you have a parent who hasn't been able to protect you and then you become a parent, do you have the ability to protect your children or do you overprotect, or do you just simply not know how to parent, because there's that issue too. You know, we're still struggling from, from the, um, the schools, the boarding schools, where we've got intergenerational issues coming out of that. And, and like, I've tried to explain to people-- in particular social workers-- you're expecting, first of all, women to parent their children the way that you want them to parent. But you're not realizing that they don't know how to do that because perhaps their parent or their grandparent was in boarding school from the time that they were six or seven years old and got kicked out at 17 or 18, there was no parenting done in that whole time. And they came out expecting to be adults and take on adult things and usually had children. And so if they didn't know how to parent, how can they teach you to parent? Plus, we parent our children in Indian communities different than non-Indian communities. And what I find, one of the biggest things that I fight against, or try to find solutions for, I guess, is an understanding for the apathy. It's just so commonplace for sexual assault. And the blame on the victim is so high. That’s a lot of what I do right now is, is support, try and find proper counseling, which is not easy because again, most of the counselors who have master's degrees, which is what you have to have to be a licensed counselor in this state, really don't have any idea or very little idea of the background of Indigenous people. Even though they live in the state, there's too much expecting, there's still too much assimilation, I guess, is what I'm thinking…

Jennie: I just feel like that was like layers and layers of heartbreak, of hearing, just…

Juskwa: Yeah. Jennie: So much pain in so many different places.

Juskwa: Yeah. And…because it gets so frustrating that you could just say, “I'm not… I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore,” because you just feel like you're butting your head against the wall and you're not succeeding in anything. But what we have to remember, if we get one person in the system to understand, then it'll, it'll, hopefully, there'll be more because they'll say, “listen, listen to what they have to say,” listen to, you know, listen to the respect that you say you're gonna provide them. And you haven't been.

Jennie: I feel like we were already starting to refer to this by talking about that intergenerational violence of… talking about how sexual violence in the Indigenous community is part of a much bigger picture of violence against Indigenous women and girls.

Juskwa: Yeah. Sexual violence is just so much part of it… spiritual violence, all, all of those areas, and you physically have been sexually assaulted. You emotionally, you know, may shut down in particular, if you've been sexually assaulted more than once, or if you're it's occurrence with family members and spiritually, you've got, well, let's do mentally first. Sometimes it even affects your ability to learn depending on when you were first sexually assaulted. And, and I'm saying first, because it's so common with Indigenous women, that it, and it may not even be the same person. And so you can imagine you either numb yourself up or, or you get very angry. That's how you, the only way for you to express it. That’s I think why we have so many violent women in our prison system, Indigenous, nonindigenous too. I mean, if you've been taught no other way, and you've encouraged… but then if you look at the spiritual aspect of it, too, you may create so much guilt for yourself which is a typical reaction, that you don’t feel like you deserve to become part of any spiritual activity. One of the things that I counsel in with my clients is find something that helps you spiritually, that helps you connect with, with Great Spirit, whatever helps you do that. And you know, my background is certainly quite traditional, very traditional. And that's what I'd like to see all of our Indian people do. But at this point I really don't care as long, I don't care if they go to church or tabernacle or a mosque, I don't care where they go. As long as they find some place that gives them that spiritual, oh, that quality of life that they feel that they need, because that piece is all part of life. If you have, if you give up on God, if you give up on [the Great Spirit], then what if you got, you know, you you're missing a part of it. And I, and I truly believe that people will say, you know, you'll find some women say “what's, what's God ever do for me?” you know, well, you've got beautiful children, you know, you're alive, you're breathing, you know, so, so even just the ordinary things. And, and I find that when we take women into sweat lodges that have been injured, you know, it becomes very emotional. And if it's done in a, in a way that gives them permission to be angry, to, um, to let go of all those feelings and you know, most people who pour water will say, when you come out of that, of that prayer place, you're gonna crawl out on mother earth, and you're coming and can allow yourself to reborn. You can allow yourself to be a total new person. And you know, that's what, you know, they, lot of times when you I'll hear women say, “well, I've made this mistake and that mistake,” you know, or whatever, you know, “I’ve got a felony.” You know, you can’t change anything that you’ve done five minutes ago, once it’s done, once it’s said it’s over. And so, let’s just move on from here. Let’s not beat ourselves up, let’s take responsibility, you know, if you still got outstanding court issues, let's take responsibility for that, but let's move forward.

Jennie: Yeah. All I could think about during all of this is, wow, you're really good at this. And, um, just as a survivor of intimate partner violence, like, I, I can just feel like, uh, how good of a person you, uh, would be to talk to for your community through all of this. Sorry, I'm trying to not cry. Um, it just hit me right in, in that spot. So thank you.

Juskwa: Yeah. And I guess I could say you're welcome because that's the part that we want bring forward with survivors and not call them victims. You know, your victimization is one thing, but you're a survivor from that moment that you get assistance or that you get away from that, or, you know, you’re gonna survive. You're gonna live. And if I could share a, just a real quick story about my daughter, she was on the streets for a couple of years. And this was like 25, 30 years ago, I guess, my gosh can't believe it was that long. And she actually got involved this man on a, who turned be a serial rapist and he was a suspect, and I was involved in law enforcement in those days, and we suspected that was a murderer. We, we suspected that he was, there was quite a few women that he had murdered, but there was no evidence to anything. And she disappeared for two weeks at one point. And in those days we didn't have the kind of things that we have now to search for people, and the internet, “everybody go look, help.” I just didn't know what to do. I was completely, you know, just blindsided when I realized, cuz she cause she always would call on Sunday. And when she didn't call for two Sundays, then I knew something was wrong. But you know, that was two whole weeks.

Jennie: Yeah.

Juskwa: She managed to get away from him. And I won't go into all of that, how she managed to do it, but she managed to get away from him and literally went into a catatonic state, she went into a, I guess I sort of have to, she went into a 7/11 and went right up bravely up to the gentleman that was at the front of the counter. And she said, “Please hide me. There's, there's somebody that's, that's kidnapped me. And I'm trying to get away.” And this guy pulled her in to the counter and put her down at his feet. Well, she slipped herself into the cupboard at that point. And she was pretty much in a catatonic state for about probably a week after that. And then they discovered that she was probably the only survivor of this guy that could actually identify him; in the meantime he managed country and didn't come back for about 12 years. When he came back, she had to testify against him. And so that brought it all back up. But when I realized how, I mean, I lived with all of this kind through her and, you know, as she was healing and sharing things, and it wasn't just about that particular incident. It was about that whole life that I was not even aware of. And you know, it brought the sense of what we miss and how we think of, of women in particular are… they're putting categories. You know, “you're, you're up here in a financial category, you are on the reservation, you're an urban Indian, you should know better, cuz you're an urban Indian. We talk about Indigenous communities all the time, you should have [recognized it]. You know, you should of, you should have, you should have…we, we still play a game. We still a game of blame. So my daughter survived that she did very well. I'm really proud of, of the work that she actually started to do other women and support that only a woman that's been that can share someone else; you can be a good advocate without… like used to some of the victim or some of the, um, domestic violence victims that I help train or, or advocates that I help train, if you've not ever been through it, then you can have empathy, but it's gonna be very difficult for you have sympathy because you don't, you've not been there and understand that fear that is so deep. And, and that goes as far as I'm concerned with every instance of domestic violence and sex assault and to put it in layers like, “oh, well that only happened once.” Or that's…

Jennie: The, “not that bad.”

Juskwa: Yeah. Not, “not that bad.” Yeah. Or “you never got hit,” you know, okay but my bank account got completely ruined, my credit got completely ruined, emotionally I felt like I was the stupidest, ugliest, you know just, a completely worthless person in the world because I couldn’t couldn’t make this man happy.

Jennie: Yeah. We had a conversation about intimate partner violence talking about how still there's a bunch better understanding now, but still not a really great understanding of like, it's not just physical. It's so much more that is encompassed in that. And it's really important to make sure that people know, cause if you don't know, like I didn't realize everything I had been going through because I didn't have that understanding of like what was all in that sphere until much later. And I started working on these issues and like could look back and see, oh man, I got, I feel like I got lucky, but also yeah.

Juskwa: Yeah. Oh and, and I think, you know, I worked with some, some police officers that said, well, you know, “that bruise, that was a pretty small bruise” or “she didn't get a bruise from that” or whatever. It's like, that's not the point, what led up to that is where, you know, it comes into. So there's still a lot of training we need to do. And, and certainly, you know, the alcohol issue or the drug issue, you know, with, with victims of sex assault, if they're in the drug communities, the drug using communities, then their chances of getting sexually assaulted again are like almost a hundred percent. And you know, how do you feel? I mean, I can't answer that. How would you feel being sexually assaulted over and over again? Not only as a child, but then as an adult, like where's your self worth?

Jennie: Yeah.

Juskwa: You know, and that's where we have to work as advocates of building up these women, but we can't build them up. We have to give them the tools to build up. And it's just, it's really frustrating because a lot of times you'll, you’ll get a workshop or we'll get grants in here in one of the Indian communities. And I'll hear who's working in the programs and I'll roll my eyes because first of all, I went to trainings with them and they never went to trainings. They went out shopping or whatever else it was that they wanted to do. And, and you know, the trainings, you have to take those trainings and bring them back, you know? And if you truly don't wanna help, if you're just there for, for a check or there, because your uncle Johnny's on council, you know, we're not doing the women, any, any service, we're not doing the families, any service, we're virtually not doing the communities any service. And you know, that's what I find frustrating. And the other thing is, you know, two-year grants, like we just get rolling on a two-year grant and have a really good program. And then we can't get refunded.

Jennie: Yeah.

Juskwa: Like we're not, you know, “we're not providing that program anymore. You'll have to apply for something else.” And, and I feel like even when I was reading grants and I haven't been for a number of years now, but even then it was like, “oh, these guys got one already. These guys had this grant or they've had it renewed twice.” You know, so it’s the layers of things that are happening in communities that we can’t deal with because we don’t have something continuous. So the healing part gets left to somebody like my organization who are, we're very poorly funded, but that's not why we're in it.

Jennie: Yeah. Well Juskwa, I feel like I could talk to you for a very long time, but we should wrap up. I just wanted to ask if there's anything else you would think that you would like my audience to know about the issues facing the community.

Juskwa: I think that what I would like the audience to know, and I'm not quite sure who your audience is, are they, are they survivors? Are they advocates? Are they community members? Like what…

Jennie: I, I would say they're involved in sexual and reproductive health and rights. I would say they're online, but they also want to be advocates.

Juskwa: OK. I, and I will say one thing, I can train an advocate if the heart is there and it doesn't take me very long to see that cause people can be trained if they already have that heart. I'm just looking to see listeners what, any issues, you know, we've, I think I've explained the issues that we still got facing us. And, you know, I think it's the big thing is to just listen and take opportunities to find out from your Indigenous communities and, and look for people who really know, and that may not be the person with the master's degree, that's running the program. So not that I think we shouldn't be educated. It's just that I think that sometimes the, the education of knowledge is different than the education of advocacy. And I just wanna encourage people to, you know, my, my sisters to look at that. So thank you very much.

Jennie: Okay. I hope you all enjoyed my conversation with Juskwa and now let's listen to Tarah Demant at Amnesty talk about their report.

Jennie: Hi Tarah. Thank you so much for being here today.

Tarah: I'm thrilled to be here.

Jennie: I was just thinking, I meant to count how many times you've been on before we recorded. Cause I kind of have this feeling that maybe this is like your fifth appearance.

Tarah: I have a punch card. So I'm hoping for a free yogurt at end of it all.

Jennie: Done, done-- which I think makes you the most, either you or Katelyn Burns are like right up there with like the most frequent guests. So I mean its the joy of having…

Tarah: It's the joy of having a job with a large portfolio.

Jennie: So though I'm sure everybody knows you so well by now, but maybe we should still have you introduce yourself before you get started and throw your pronouns in there.

Tarah: Yeah, absolutely. My name is Tarah and my pronouns are she/her. And I'm with Amnesty International USA where I work on women's rights, sexual and reproductive rights and Indigenous people's rights.

Jennie: I mean it's such a small portfolio, just like really narrowly focused…

Tarah: Global and domestic.

Jennie: Just like all the things.

Tarah: “All rights for all people” is our actual motto. So yeah, it's a lot of work, but you know, it's never boring.

Jennie: Exactly. Well the listeners or audience will have just heard, um, my conversation with Juskwa and it seems really fitting to have her come on before we talk about y'all's report, but maybe before we talk about the report, we talk a little bit about what is the current state of like sexual violence in Indigenous communities and probably need to start with like, not today it feels like this is definitely an intergenerational thing that you like have to start back a little bit?

Tarah: Yeah. I mean, so it's really important when we're talking about violence against Indigenous communities here in what we call the United States, that we recognize that this is a from-contact phenomenon. So the, the reality today that Native American and Alaskan Native women are 2.2 times more likely to experience sexual violence than non-Hispanic white women is part of a legacy of violence in the United States, oftentimes explicitly committed by the US government. So the reality that Indigenous women face today is generations upon generations in the making and oftentimes purposely in the making. And this starts with colonial settler contact with the forced movement of Indigenous peoples with the forced erasure of Indigenous cultures. And oftentimes rape was used as a weapon of the US government explicitly by the US government. But this isn't just, I think it's also really important to understand that this isn't just something that's like, oh, well forced removal's really far back. And this type of like government sponsored violence is really far back; the forced removal of Native American, Alaska Native children from their homes to so-called boarding schools, where their cultures were erased, where many experienced horrific physical and sexual abuse and where many, many children died. This was a US policy. It wasn't like an accident. It was a purposeful policy by the government. And some of the women that we talked to for this report who are now leading the work to end sexual violence are survivors of boarding schools, right? The US policy to sterilize Indigenous women is documented and purposely, intentionally sterilized, is a US policy against Indigenous women documented as late as the seventies and then beyond as practice, if not policy, right? So these are things that aren't like distant past in terms of state sponsored violence. So when we talk about violence against Indigenous women in the USA, that's happening here by non-state actors, it's important to understand that the state-- being the United States-- has set up this system to make this reality happen. And its failures are oftentimes part of a legacy of intentional violence. So, so it's important to see it in that context, not just because it, we don't wanna erase the reality that Indigenous people have faced sense settler contact, but also because it's not like, oh, what a weird coincidence that Indigenous people experience such high rates of violence because it's not, the system was set up for this and it's operating exactly as the system was set up. And I, I should just note as a clarification that, you know, there are many Indigenous peoples in what we call the United States, including in our territories. And this report focuses explicitly on Alaska Native women and Native American women. So unfortunately, we're not able to cover the realities facing native Hawaiians or Indigenous people in like Guam, American Samoa, or the Marshall Islands. So, and that's partly because of US policy, which is different to different Indigenous groups and US policy towards Alaska Native and Native Americans is one the ones that we looked at in terms of like jurisdiction and why we're in the place we are in terms of sexual violence rates.

Jennie: So what is the current status? And like how does this all relate to reproductive rights?

Tarah: Yeah. So I mean the reproductive rights reality is that Indigenous women in the United States experience some of the highest rates of sexual violence and the US government has failed to prevent and respond to this epidemic of violence. And in many ways have created the conditions that create this epidemic of sexual violence against Native American and Alaska Native women. So Native American and Alaska Native women are 2.2 times more likely to have been raped than non-Hispanic white women. And that means like 56% of Native women have experienced sexual violence. That's over half of Native American women. That is an epidemic. That's a health crisis. That's a reproductive health crisis. The United States has created this system, this so that survivors of sexual violence, they face a maze, which means that they can't access the, the basic care they need, the basic sexual reproductive healthcare that they need, or justice. And it's not preventing further harm from happening. The root of this has been the US’ erosion of tribal authority. That's really created the circumstances for this crisis to flourish. And, you know, as your, as your listeners know, the United States has multiple human rights obligations in regard to sexual reproductive health and rights, but they also have a clear obligation to protect respect and fulfill the human rights of Indigenous people specifically in ways that are, that are treaty bound. And that also they're bound in, in terms of their obligations under the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People. So like all people, Indigenous women, Indigenous people have the right to live free from sexual violence. Like all people, Indigenous people have the right to the highest of healthcare, but they also then have rights because of their Indigenous status, which recognize that Indigenous people's worldwide and in the us, you know, really obviously have been specifically targeted because of their Indigenous status. And so therefore governments need to understand and address the realities for Indigenous peoples and what the United States has done instead is the opposite, is that they've created a system in which Indigenous people are instead targeted because of their identity that they are, they have targeted less healthcare. They have targeted less access to, to timely and law enforcement response that they have this jurisdiction that's been set so that wherever with, if you're tribally enrolled and the crime happens in Indian country, which is like is federally designated land like reservation land, and it just depends on so many factors, which police show up. And it depends on so many factors which court can take it on and it becomes this incredible, what we call this maze of injustice, that ultimately means all these like real complicated, extremely complicated issues mean that ultimately no one shows up no courts take it.

Tarah: And that survivors are left without, you know, the basic process of care or law enforcement support or court and justice, right? It's this incredibly complex system that the United States has created that results in this crisis and has further exacerbated what's happening to Indigenous peoples to Indigenous women, particularly. So that's the, the basic reality is that more than one and two Native American and Alaska Native women have experienced sexual violence. And that they're the least likely to be able to access, you know, the, the care and support and health that they need in our reporting. We, we look at this in sort of four different ways. And the first is the question of jurisdiction, which is that the United States forums this incredibly complex interrelation between federal government, state, government and tribal government that undermines tribal authority and allows perpetrators of violence against Indigenous women to evade justice. So because of these very complicated laws about whose land gets to be, you know, policed or courts get to run in which land depends on who the perpetrator is, who the victim is, what type of crime it is, what level of crime is where it happens. I mean, it's just like this monster, like jurisdictional maze. The reality then is that perpetrators walk free. So the first thing we look at is this question jurisdiction and Congress has created centuries of contradictory law regarding country and Indigenous people, which has created the system. So we need big fixes there. The next thing we look at is the question of policing. There is just a, a massive lack of resources for Indigenous tribal police that limit their authority to over certain crimes, particularly over major crimes. So sexual assault and rate, for example, then there's really poor interagency cooperation. So the idea is the federal government says, “oh, well, tribal police, you can't do this crime, but don't worry. We'll do it.” But what, what happens is that tribal government and tribal cannot respond to a crime, and they're not funded to, legally. And then the federal government does not to that. So that federal policing is not picking up. That obligation means that that people's rape cases are not investigated. It means that people's assault cases are not investigated. So the third thing we look at then is healthcare, which I know we're gonna talk about in a bit and support services. So when Indigenous women need post-rape care, they just often can't access it. Many reservations and villages are located far away from health services and can't provide sexual assault services. And for those that have healthcare, which is provided through Indian Health Services, it's just a real crapshoot whether or not they actually have a rape kit, which you need be able to take case criminal justice system, a real failure for post-rape healthcare as well. And then finally, the piece we look at is the question of prosecutions. If a survivor wants to move through a criminal justice procedure, they have that right. They should have that, right. And they have that right on paper. But in reality, what's happening is that the justice system that responds to crimes in Indian country is underfunded. And the response is massively inadequate. And again, part of that is based on that really complicated is like who justice system is responding, right? If you don't live in Indian country, if there’s a crime against you in California, depending on whether it's a major or minor crime, it might, the city might just process it or you go to county court, you go to district and Supreme Court if there's those type of cases that move up or down. But if you're Native American and Alaska Native, there's an entirely separate set of rules. That to people who commit against you, who are not Native, Alaskan, not tribal. And that it means there is a totally separate set of rules for people who are committing major crimes against Native people. And the federal government would say, “well, in theory, like that's still a crime we'll investigate,” but the reality is there's just a totally separate of rules for perpetrators of violence against Indigenous people and perpetrators know this, know this and people who live in and near Indigenous communities know this. And that's one of the main reasons that rates of rape and sexual assault are so high. So it's this incredibly complicated system, but it’s a policy choice. These are choices by the government to not address this, to not address sexual violence, it's something reproductive rights advocates and folks in the community need to help understand to see this as central to our work. This reality is central to our work, like this question of sexual violence and lack of reproductive healthcare is central to our work. So I'm really grateful to be able to talk about it with you today and to direct people, not just to this report, but to the incredible work that Indigenous activists, advocates and survivors are doing in their communities to talk about more about how we can help that.

Jennie: It was really great to get a, a big overview of the report because it's really big report and there's so much to talk about. So it was good to get the like 10,000 foot level. Now let's dig into like some of the sections and talk more about like what's happening there and maybe let's start with jurisdiction?

Tarah: So I mean, one of the reasons the rates of sexual violence are so disproportionately high is because of the failures I'm about to talk about, and these are failures of the US government. So the first thing is that when someone is assaulted that you call law enforcement and immediately there is a problem for Native American or Alaska Native survivors because which law enforcement you call or that comes or agrees to come depends on a variety of just banana factors that you may or may not know as a survivor. So depending which police should show up, which police should you call or if they show up, which police are going to be willing to talk to you or help you that depends on your tribal enrollment, whether or not the perpetrator is tribally enrolled. So sure hope you happen to know that about the person who just assaulted you and whether or not this happened in what's called Indian country, which is a legal term, which means the easiest way to think about it is tribal land in terms of reservation land. And that might seem really easy if you look at a US map and you think, oh, here's where that is, but in some communities, you could be across the street and it's like a checkerboard community. And so where physically the assault happened matters in terms of the legal designation. So which police or, or law enforcement respond. And also what is the severity of the assault? Is it a major crime? Is it a misdemeanor? And that depends on the type of sexual assault and the degree, the legal degree, right? Not the traumatic degree for a survivor, but the legal degree of that assault. So what happens if you're a survivor and you call 911 and, and multiple police might show up. It could be the local tribal police. And so that would be like, if you live, I live in Washington, DC, that could be like, it'd be like the DC police showing up your local city police, right? So your tribal police, it could be the Bureau of Indian Affairs police, which is the federal version of Indigenous policing in the United States. It could be the local county sheriff who is not a part of the tribal government. So it could be, if you are in, for example, if you're at Standing Rock, many-- people know Standing Rock cuz of pipeline and the reversal of Indigenous rights going on there-- that like the county sheriff who is outside the reservation and outside Indian country might show up, it could be the FBI, the, the Federal Bureau of Investigations could show up if it's a federal major crime. So this is already four to five different policing agencies or law enforcement agencies. And what this means is this probably your, your listeners are like, what on earth is she talking about? And that is exactly the right response because what this means is what happens. And we heard multiple stories of this, whereas survivor calls, law enforcement, they show up at the door and then they argue with each other about who has to take this case or who has responsibility for this case. So you have someone who's experienced trauma, who's reached out for help and with law enforcement, which is what they are told to do and they're being juggled around already on their doorstep. So now the next question is like, this person needs medical help too. That's also oftentimes a law enforcement who will take you to that medical help or direct you to medical help.

Tarah: So now we've hit a second question, which is where and how can this person get medical help and post-rape care for most Native American and Alaska Native women? That is the Indian Health Service. An Indian Health Service is the easiest way, I think about it is it's like the VA. It is medical care for a specific group of folks. And in this case, it is a treaty obligation by the United States government. So this is something that was part of treaty obligations to try for a variety of things, but particularly land that was taken. So this is a treaty obligation that the US has, and that might be a local clinic run on the reservation. It might be a clinic in an urban space. Um, the majority of Indigenous folks in the US live in urban spaces and not a reservation. It might be an IHS hospital depending on how big your population is, right? But these are all run by the IHS or contracted out. And the reality is for Native women, when they show up at IHS, they are very unlikely to get the post-rape care they need. It is extremely dependent on where you live. So of course, in like larger spaces with more developed hospitals or clinics, you might have the care you need, but the less likely that is the more rural you are, the smaller the population, that you could show up to your local clinic. And if it is open, if you happen to conveniently be assaulted at the right time, quote unquote, if they're open, you could go in and there's no rape kit, like physically there is not the evidence collection that needs to get done. So that in addition to all the other things that, that a body needs after an assault, so that eventually that could go to trial.. If there is a rape kit, there won't be someone there who is trained to administer it. If there is someone there who's trained to administer it, which again is very, very rarely happening there, there isn't somewhere to store it. If there is someone to store it, that person isn't the, the person doesn't testify at trial, you need the person who administered the kits to testify at trial. So there's this like cascading failure of the IHS to respond adequately to rape kits. So the American Society of Forensic Nurses did a study and they found that for the majority of Native American and Alaska Natives, they don't live within two hours of a center that can provide a rape kit. They don't live within two hours of a rape kit with Indian Health Service. That's bananas, you've been assaulted and you're like, hope you have a car! Hope you're ready emotionally, physically, financially to drive two hours to get a rape kit! I mean, that is a level that is a threshold of care. That is, that is not a threshold of care, right? That is not care at all. The other option, obviously for a survivor, maybe not obviously would be like, well, if you go to a non- Indigenous healthcare center, so a non-Indian health center, so, or an IHS center, that is an option if you happen to live somewhere that, that abuts other spaces. But the other thing we found is that these centers oftentimes will charge for their services on knowing that they aren't supposed to. And that it, that for survivors, they're scared of being charged. Other survivors have talked about their experience in non-Indian health centers and the incredible racism that they face and the, the way in which the care is not just not culturally appropriate, but it's actively harmful. So we have a total failure of healthcare, and I know I'm giving so much detail here, but it's, it's sort of incredible to wrap your mind around like, look, the whole US system of healthcare is obviously a complete and utter failure of human rights in many ways.

Tarah: But like there is just a second reality for Native American and Alaska Native people when it comes to post-rape care. And that reality is there is just no consistency in terms of post-rape care. There is no guarantee that if you roll up that you're gonna get the care you need, and what does that mean for a survivor physically and emotionally? You know, you know, that's something I think we all need to sit with, but I'll tell you what it means legally. It means that perpetrators walk free. It means that there is no criminal trial, that perpetrators become repeat offenders. And this is why in communities that we've talked to there have been some communities where not one adult woman knew somebody-- knew of anyone who was another adult woman-- who had not been raped. I mean, this is the reality that we're looking at is hat the US government failures, and they are policy failures, these are choices, meaning that we've created a system in which rapists go absolutely scott free and prey on Indigenous peoples. Um, and that to me is mind boggling because of these like very complicated legal failures that are set up to be legal failures, right? This jurisdictional nightmare is intentional. It is meant to strip tribes of their authority. It is meant to make sure that tribes can't prosecute repeat offenders. Um, and that is a major sexual reproductive healthcare problem. It's a major reproductive rights crisis. And it's just not talked about because it's an extremely disposable community for most people, certainly for the US government. Um, and that's why, I mean, I'm so grateful I'm going on and on, but I'm so grateful to talk about it on the Repros podcast because that work, I think oftentimes is so siloed and, and it becomes not something in the repro community. Even we don’t talk about that much because it's a very complicated sort of subset of issues, but it's one that is front and center in the lives of Native American and Alaska Native women.

Jennie: All I can think of is like the levels of just frustration and devastation of like trying to get help and supposedly help comes. And they're like, siting on your doorstep over who has to handle this. And like, nobody's actually helping and then they're like, “okay, well you have to go somewhere to maybe get a rape kit that maybe isn't probably isn't available. And even if it is, there's no one there who can do it. And then we, even if we could, we can't store it. So like, eh!”

Tarah: It's bananas, like…

Jennie: How do you just not feel hopeless in that situation?

Tarah: Right. And we certainly documented quite a bit of that in which like a number of advocates and many of whom are survivors themselves are just like, “oh, I just don't even, I don't trust it” because why would like, someone's going to be retraumatized after one of the worst moments of their lives, right? Like one in two Native American or Alaska Native women are assaulted in their lifetime. One in two, that's half. And like the, you know, the, the resources are just not there. They're sort of intentionally not there. And so that’s why there is so little trust in the healthcare system. There's so little trust in the police and in other law enforcement. And that's because of these experiences, it's not like some like theoretical distrust, right? Your sister, your cousin, your daughter has been assaulted and goes to an IHS center or the closest clinic, which would be maybe contracted through the tribal government and the, the resources aren't there. And that's like, again, these are policy choices. This is not that there aren't people within Indian Health Service who are working really hard to serve this community. There are people, people work incredibly hard and the tribes that are tribally contracted their facilities work incredibly hard. Congress funds the Indian Health Service at 50% of its budgetary needs. So, so what does that, what does that mean? I mean, imagine walking into a hospital or your doctor's appointment and you have, you know, five things you need to address, and they're like, eh, we have 50%, you have 50%. So choose what it is, right? Like this is bananas. So you have these systems that are put into these incredibly impossible situations. Although IHS itself needs to first, it needs to be documenting where these rape cases are. The Indian Health Service needs to get numbers in terms of like, what are rape kit provisions? Where are their gaps? How can, you know, what are ways in which advocates can help fill those gaps? And they couldn't tell you where there were, were not rape kits. Like they're not tracking that data. And that's, that's bananas like this is, you know, this is a, there's a failure on multiple levels. So I, I do wanna say that there are so many civil servants who are working so hard within the system, but there are major system failures that mean things for a survivor. Why would you trust the health service center? I mean, the other thing to say about Indian Health Services, and this goes back to that legacy of violence, is that within it, this is where forced sterilization happened, right? This was the US policy through IHS. Then there was very recent cases in which doctors who were committing sexual assault and rape against children in the most recent case were allowed sort of passed around different centers, even though they knew there was a problem. So like the trust level was so low and there is just total documented failure all over of why, you know, even if you did trust the system and you show up that, that care's not gonna be there for you. And I, I think it can, it can sound it's so mind numbing, because it sounds so extreme and so made up, you know, honestly, like when we were documenting, this is the second time we've documented this crisis, which is extremely rare for Amnesty to come back to the same topic, because there are unfortunately so many human rights violations in so many places. But because, you know, we had documented this first in 2007 and you know, the US government has said, “oh, we've done all these things. We passed the Tribal Law and Order Act. We passed the Violence Against Women Act.” And like, they've just been bandaids on the tumor because ultimately the US government is, is explicitly, intentionally stripping power away from the tribes to be able to do anything about this. So we came back and when we did this, I mean, you know how the sausage is made to, to put out a report for Amnesty, have to go through just a mind numbing number of reviews and fact checking and whatever. And there were so many people who came back on our draft saying, this can't possibly be true. You need to double check this. This can't possibly be true because it was so outrageous. It is so outrageous. These failures that like people who, who document human rights abuses globally, where like this can't be true. You must have missed, missed a number. It can't be true that the rates are so much higher. It can't be true that there's so much failure across the board. It can't be true that these laws are designed in a way to basically let non-Native perpetrators of violence go free and, and that's what's happening.

Jennie: That's just, it's so much horror. It's so much.

Tarah: Yeah. Like at the, of the day, the, the system that the US government has set up means that a non-Native, which is a non-tribal perpetrator of sexual assault or rape against a tribal member is almost certain to get almost certain to get off. And that is because, again, because of this jurisdiction, who can police, who can try whomever. Like let's say you go to a casino or something, and you steal a stick of gum, the tribal police, or the local police who are there can like, you know, arrest or detain, you go through whatever the process is for stealing a stick of gum or chips or whatever it's that you've stolen. But if you murder someone, the tribal police cannot detain you because of the Major Crimes Act. And the Major Crimes Act, which specifically there's specific provisions which limit tribal authority and these provisions by the way, are just blatantly racist. They have nothing to do with the reality of tribal law enforcement. They are only under the assumption that tribal law enforcement can't be trusted to police fairly in the same way that the US system trusts non-tribal law enforcement to quote unquote police fairly. And I mean, this is just bananas and that's the truth with court systems too. So again, if a non-Native perpetrator walks on to Indian country or say a reservation and assaults a tribally enrolled woman, and then walks off that reservation, like there's, even if they're still on the reservation, the tribal police can't hold them. They have to wait for the FBI to show up, right. Because it's a federal level crime. So the FBI has to show up, well, guess what the FBI's not doing, like driving randomly around and prosecuting rape cases because the that's just not the FBI's priority for, for any population, but particularly in Indian country. So there's just this cascade of failures. That means we have a reproductive rights crisis that is so complicated that it sort of gets shuffled around.

Jennie: So maybe we step away from like the, the horror of like, talking about the situation, which is terrible. And like, what do we need to do to fix it? Like, what are the next steps?

Tarah: Yeah. So glad you asked. Um, right. So we have this system that is designed to basically prey on Indigenous women. I mean, that is not an overstatement. So like, well, what does that mean? Like without decolonizing the whole country, what needs to happen? Like what, before we overturn the patriarchy, before we decolonize, like what can happen? And the answer is like, there's a lot. So there's a number of things that can happen. Ultimately, the failure here, and there's a number of complex things that I've, I've talked about maybe in too much detail, really, but like, there's so many complex things, but at the root of this is that the United States needs to restore tribal sovereignty, like any other government. So when I lived in Oakland, it went like in Oakland City, city, government, Oakland City police, like didn't have to ask the US federal government, if it could hold a rapist in its jails, Oakland City did not need to ask the federal government, if it could try a rapist through the local courts, through the county courts, right? Like that the, we were talking about sovereign nations whose jurisdiction and, and authority needs to be restored. That is the overarching solution. And anything that sort of falls short of that is only piecemeal. It's not gonna do enough. So we've seen a number of really, you know, folks may know that in the last [inaudible] included provisions that allowed for in very specific circumstances, tribes to prosecute, non-Native, again, non-tribally enrolled offenders of sexual violence. That's a huge victory. Now there's so many caveats on it and it's super, super complicated. And I love to bore your listeners about more of that anytime. It's so interesting, but like, ultimately that is like, that's a really important thing that'll happen. And it's a bandaid because what needs to happen is the US government needs to restore jurisdiction to tribes and restore their authority. So as people are thinking about like how, what do we do as reproductive right s defenders and reproductive right fighters? And one of those things is we need to be serious about our partnership with Indigenous nations and the, and the fight for Indigenous sovereignty, because that's a system fix that needs to happen. So it's, it's something I think that we don't often think about in the reproductive rights world, cuz maybe it seems like, like a great idea, but not related. And it is deeply, deeply related, the inability of tribes to protect and, and respect and fulfill the rights of their own people because the US government, the federal government has made that impossible. So, so, so that's the overarching thing I'd say, which is, as you're thinking about your work is in reproductive rights, is to understand that the intersectionality of that means we have to be fighting for tribal sovereignty and for the restoration of jurisdiction and jurisdiction is who can reply to what crime. Right? And that sounds so nerdy. But the reality is like, if, again, if tribes can't reply to these crimes, no one is. In theory, the federal government is supposed to do it or in some cases, the state government for very complicated reasons, but like they're not. And so if, if tribes can't do it, no one's doing it. And the US has set up that system. So, so that's the first thing. The second thing is, is understanding that like there are things that can happen in the meantime to mitigate harm. And one of those is that the Indian Health Service centers can make sure there are rape kits for survivors so that survivors can have access to justice through the criminal justice system if they so choose. And that should always, of course be up to the survivor. But right now there's no, there's no pathway for remediation. There's no pathway for, for justice. There's no pathway for, for any, any sort of sense of again, your, your human right. When your rights have been violated, you have the right to, to justice in some sort of, of renumeration. And, and that's not, that's not happening and that's not possible because of the failures of IHS. So one of the things I'd love to put in your show notes is we do have an action to reach out to Indian Health Service and remind them that they have an obligation to provide rape kits. This is basic care. It's not good enough that they can't figure out who's there or that it's complicated because of staffing issues. It is complicated because of staffing issues, its complicated because of the hours of operation, but it's also not rocket science, like where are the rape kits and why our survivors showing up to Indian Health Service centers or tribally run service centers that are again under Indian Health Service and, and there's no rape kits?

Tarah: So, so that's gotta happen. That's the healthcare piece in policing. We have got, there's got to be movement for better cross jurisdictional coordination until of course that time in which tribes have full, um, restoration of their, their jurisdiction. And, and that's a long-time fight like that is a, that's a long, lifelong fight because of multiple rulings by the Supreme Court, but long a while ago that that restrict that. So that's a lifelong fight, but until then, like local and federal and county police and law enforcement must be better collaborating with tribal law enforcement. And there has to be a prioritization of these cases by the us attorney's offices. So not only did the police need to be taking this seriously or the law enforcement need to be taking this seriously, but the, the prosecutors need to be doing this right. So in the US attorney's offices and that's the federal people who are supposed to trade these cases, which don't get done. These cases are just not getting tried. And that's because there's no funding. If you take it on, it's like extra work for you and you're already, you know, you already have this huge caseload. So, so there's a number of things that people can do. And, and they do require a slightly higher lift because it requires being, people never understand, like, wait, what's a attorney…like what's going on? Like at the end of the day, like if someone, if a Native woman is assaulted on tribal land, she should have access to basic post-rape care. She should access to the highest level of care, but she certainly doesn't have access to basic post-rape care. She should have law enforcement that show up and help walk her through how to address her needs, how to move forward with the case, if she wants to, she should have the court system understanding and working with her towards, towards her case so that we don't have perpetrators, you know, walking free. And these are the multiple ways in which the US government has created this sort of real legacy of violence. You know, in the meantime, there's the gosh. The other thing to, to mention is that like, of course, because of other restrictions, like Indian Health Service centers, there there's restrictions on access to abortion and abortion care. So there's a number of things that are super interrelated to this, right? So, you know, what can your listeners do? Look, they can go to, to www.amnestyusa.org/maze, like Maze of Injustice. And you can take action right now to demand Indian Health Service centers make sure that all their service centers have post-rape care. You can find out more there about all these sort of sub aspects. You can also donate if you've got a little extra money, you can donate to abortion funds that specifically fund for Native American and Alaska Native women, and, and also for Native Hawaiian women and that's Indigenous Women Rising at indigenouswomenrising.org. But if you, if you Google Native abortion funder, you'll find it because again, like this is a population that because of, again, the treaty obligation of the US has less access to abortion than other populations because of the than restrictions on federal money and abortion. Right? So those are two things right away. But again, I think, even I'm just so grateful to be in this conversation because it's, it's an issue that gets talked about so separately from our reproductive rights work. And it's just so central, I think oftentimes in racial justice work, we talk about, you know, Black and brown people living in a totally separate and unequal policing system, healthcare system, et cetera, and oftentimes left out of that equation is the reality for Indigenous peoples as well. And this is not the oppression Olympics, right? Like we need to fix all these problems and we need to address these particularly for myself, like as a white ally, like we need to address this. And I think one of the things we have to do better in the reproductive rights world is to understand that when we're talking about racial discrimination, that like Indigenous people are often made invisible in that conversation and that they face extremely unique, legal pathways and restrictions and, and barriers to, to their care, to being able to live with dignity, to being able to access their human rights. Um, and so that's something I think we, we just need to keep that going. So it's folks are doing reproductive rights work when you're working on Roe, when you're working on access to abortion, when you're working on access to contraception, whatever those amazing things you're act, um, acting on, like, make sure you're asking yourself, like, where are the Indigenous people in this conversation? Make sure you're asking yourself, where are the Black and brown people in this conversation? Where are the trans people in this conversation, right? Those are all things to be asking yourself. And, and for this one, where, where are Native American women, lesbian Native women, where are the Native Hawaiian women, where are survivors, right? That, why are those not part of our conversations and made so invisible? And that's gonna help not only like specific populations, but to help our movement, like really be able to grow and to be successful. Like we can only win together.

Jennie: Well, Tarah, thank you so much for your time as always is an absolute joy to talk to you. Uh, so thank you for coming back and thank you for connecting me with Juskwa.

Tarah: Yeah. I, I mean, I, I really wanna, I, at the beginning, like this work that Amnesty International has done is in part in full partnership with Native American and Alaska Native, oftentimes women led organizations. And this is work that we have come into that has been led for generations by Indigenous peoples. And so we we're really, you know, we are we're partners in this work, but we're not leaders in this work. We're here to shine a light on what people have been, you know, shouting for, for generations. And the US government has just not paid attention has refused to pay attention. So we're really, really grateful to, to Juskwa for, for all the advocates who, who are doing work, that, that they shouldn't have to do that, that shouldn't have to be done. And so for us to be able to come and, and really just report what lots of Indigenous peoples have known for a long, long time, it is it's, it's a really important partnership and we're really do that.

Jennie: Oh, thank you.

Tarah: Thank you.

Jennie: Everyone. I hope you really enjoyed my conversations with and Tarah. It was really hard conversation with both of them talking about such an important topic. I hope you all enjoyed it.

Jennie: Thanks for listening everyone. And we'll see you on our next episode of RePROS Fight Back. For more information, including show notes from this episode and previous episodes, please visit our website at reprosfightback.com. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at RePROS Fight Back, or on Instagram at reprosfb. If you like our show, please help others find it by sharing it with your friends and subscribing, rating and reviewing us on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

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