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   From: wolfbat359a@mindspring.com   
      
   headline:   
      
   Deborah Parker, Vice Chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes, speaks on April   
   25, 2012. Courtesy: YouTube   
      
   My question for Congress was and has always been: why did you not   
   protect me, or my family? Why is my life, and the life of so many   
   other Native American women, less important?”   
         —Deborah Parker, vice chairwoman, Tulalip Tribes, April 25,   
   2012.   
      
   On April 24, Deborah Parker, vice chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes in   
   Washington State, visited Congress regarding an environmental   
   protection matter. She stopped by Senator Patty Murray’s office and   
   asked how the Senate reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act   
   (VAWA) was proceeding. Staff members informed her that despite the   
   efforts of Senator Murray and others, provisions to protect Native   
   American women would not be included in the bill.   
      
   Parker was devastated. She had been abused as a child and has also   
   witnessed rape and abuse many times on the reservation. Each time the   
   “non-Indian” perpetrator wasn’t prosecuted because tribal authorities   
   have jurisdiction only over Native Americans, and state and federal   
   authorities were unresponsive. This is a crisis not only for the   
   Tulalip Tribes, but also on reservations across the country, where non-   
   Indians are permitted to commit violence against Native women with   
   impunity.   
      
   “I don’t feel people understand,” Parker tells me. “On the reservation   
   there is such a feeling of despair—it’s not a matter of is it going to   
   happen, it’s when is it going to happen? Perpetrators even mock Indian   
   women because they know they will not get prosecuted.”   
      
   The statistics are indeed horrific: one in three Native women will be   
   raped in their lifetimes; two in five are victims of domestic   
   violence; three out of five will be physically assaulted. Native women   
   are 2.5 times more likely to be assaulted—and more than twice as   
   likely to be stalked—than other women in the United States. On some   
   reservations, the murder rate of Native women is ten times the   
   national average. According to the Indian Law Resource Center, 88   
   percent of these crimes are committed by non-Indians—the majority of   
   the population residing on reservations is now non-Indian—and US   
   attorneys are declining to prosecute 67 percent of sexual abuse   
   matters referred to them.   
      
   As a result, the Department of Justice under the Obama administration   
   proposed that VAWA reauthorization allow tribal courts to prosecute   
   cases of domestic and dating violence, and violations of restraining   
   orders, where a non-Indian has a clear relationship with a tribal   
   member. It is a limited reform—it doesn’t address stranger-on-stranger   
   violence, rape or sexual assault, for example. Still, it’s an   
   important advance in addressing a situation which Parker describes as   
   allowing non-Indians to “come on the reservation and commit heinous   
   crimes and walk off and little to nothing occurs.”   
      
   After receiving the news from Murray’s staff, Parker attended her next   
   meeting on the Hill. But she didn’t finish it. She returned to   
   Murray’s office and asked to see the Senator.   
      
   Murray left the Senate floor within ten minutes and met alone with   
   Parker, whom she has known through many years of working together on   
   tribal issues. The moment Murray saw Parker she said, “You’re it”—that   
   Parker was the person they needed to be a spokesperson on this issue.   
   Murray told her that she would hold a press conference the next day,   
   and that Parker should just “tell the story that’s most important to   
   you—I want people to understand how this is affecting tribes.”   
      
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