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On Dec 14 2012, 7:41 am, chatnoir wrote:
> 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.”
RIGHT ON! Thank you for posting this, this is very good news
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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