Photo: Kathy Aney/East Oregonian
To read more of Bryce Dole and Zack Demars' article, please click here.
Voices of Resilience
Indigenous women across the country have endured disproportionately high rates of violence stemming from systemic and cultural obstacles: Mistrust, limited policing, a lack of resources for support services and a dizzying array of jurisdictional issues for crimes committed on tribal land are all factors.
This is the first installment of a two-part investigative project in partnership with Underscore News, a nonprofit publication focused on Native American issues. The series will show how obstacles to prosecution prompted Indigenous survivors to use their stories of trauma to empower others, inspired initiatives encouraging change and how evolving policies are shaping the legal landscape. The second installment of the series will be published July 17.
No one story can encapsulate the trauma that Indigenous survivors of domestic and sexual violence have endured.
But taken together, the stories of three Indigenous survivors in Oregon show what it means to forgive, to raise a child in a painful world, to find the strength to keep fighting, to build a community and find a home.
Shaped in isolation by the traumatic events they faced, their stories are linked by one woman who helped them find their voice and inspired them not only to press on through their pain but to bring other survivors with them.
A growing body of research shows that Native Americans nationwide endure disproportionately high rates of violence. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says nearly half of all Native American women have suffered physical or sexual violence. A separate Justice Department report found that 1 in 3 Indigenous women have been raped or experienced an attempted rape — more than twice the national average.
While the national research indicates high rates of violence on tribal land nationwide, official crime statistics from authorities in Oregon paint a murky picture at best. Federal statistics obtained from the FBI’s Summary Reporting System contain violent crime data from just one tribal police department in Oregon — Umatilla — prior to 2006. Data is missing in the system for one or more tribal police departments for seven of the last eight reporting years, and more before that.
Comments (0)