Montana’s red pill on Native American sexual assault

Warning: Confidential content. Readers are requested to exercise discretion.

Indigenous women and girls are more likely to be victims of sexual assault than any other population group. This shouldn’t be the case, but the numbers prove it.

Legal Finders has published a summary guide on assaults against Indigenous women which is a good and quick read for anyone like me who is concerned about these crimes.

Here are the stark numbers:

Over 84% of Native American and Alaska Native women have experienced some form of violence in their lives. Over 56% have been sexually assaulted. In 71% of these attacks, the woman knew the perpetrator.

According to a 2013 analysis, 67% of the perpetrators who committed these crimes were non-Native American, 33% were of another race, 10% were black, and 57% were white. This means that one-third of sexual assaults were committed by Native Americans and well over one-third by whites.

What leads to increased assault and violence against Indigenous women and girls? Race may play a role. More importantly, there is confusion about tribal jurisdiction and the woeful lack of law enforcement or criminal justice on tribal lands, an unwillingness to address or investigate sexual assault, and a paucity of assault investigation services.

Let me add one more detail to the above paragraph: the perpetrator knows all this! He knows he can commit the brutal sex crime and probably get away with it.

The guide also explains the types of sexual violence against Indigenous women, including violence by close friends, incest and drug trafficking. It lists the physical, mental and emotional harm inflicted on the woman, but also describes the steps to recovery using therapies and traditional healing arts.

I highly recommend this Legal Finders’ Guide to familiarise readers with this aggravating abuse of Indigenous women. It takes less than an hour to read, but solving the problems will require uncomfortable and invasive cultural and criminal justice reforms. The question is, do we have the courage to do it?