Hi friends!
Today, let me talk about how I learned about MMIW. In the summer of 2020, I was involved with a program to write a mock legislature bill proposal that addressed an issue at the Federal level. I researched issues on injustice concerning women’s rights. My research infuriated me. An epidemic of violence facing Indigenous women.
As part of the justification of my mock bill proposal, I wrote;
“The Department of Justice found that American Indian and Alaska Native women are “more than 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women in the USA in general.” At least 70% of all violent crimes against Native American women are committed by persons, not of the same race (Department of Justice).
Despite these crime rates, American Indian and Alaska Native tribes face jurisdictional issues that prevent them from prosecuting perpetrators of these violent acts. A 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, ruled that tribes do not have the jurisdiction to prosecute non-tribe members for crimes committed on Indian land. As such, Indian Country jurisdiction is divided between federal, state, and tribal governments. Yet the U.S. government often overlooks these reported cases, reportedly refusing to prosecute 67% of reported cases by Indian reservations (Indian Law Resource Center).
The astronomical difference in violent crimes Native American women see due to their inability to prosecute non-tribe members for such crimes has gone virtually unaddressed. With the U.S. turning a blind eye to crimes on these tribal lands, despite the involvement of U.S. citizens, Native Americans are subsequently neglected. After a history of tenuous relations, this only further strains relations between America and these tribes. “
My bill proposal was to bury the gaps that exist, to increase protections for Native Americans.
Going back to my first post “Pipelines Bring More Than Just Oil”, imagine U.S. Citizens, working for extraction industries, living in Man Camps on Native American Reservations. Is it just me, to imagine that men are likely to become familiar with the fact that due to complications of jurisdictional systems and Law Enforcement Negligence & Incapacity, perpetrators are quite unlikely brought to justice if the crime were committed on Native American Land? If this were true, will it make sense to assume that the perpetrators will not stop ?
Do you want to know what happened to my mock bill proposal? I debated with about 200 students virtually and it had passed nearly unanimously. But what I want to emphasize here is the messages that flooded Zoom chat after my debate. Participating students expressed disbelieve of this injustice continued for decades and thanked me for highlighting the issue.This made me realize my bill proposal passed simply because it made sense. Had only people known this reality, of course, they would support the bill like mine. This realization encouraged me to start this blog. I want to spread the awareness that we need to pressure our politicians to create new bills to support Native Americans, Native women, girls, and mothers. No more stolen sisters!
Until next time.