Sharing Our Stories of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence (17 page)

Barriers

Many communities are beginning to develop their own local responses to these incidents, but many are left without resources to develop a basic infrastructure. In many small communities, 100 percent of all women have at one time or another been victims of domestic and/or sexual abuse. For a community with a population of approximately 170, the rate of domestic violence and sexual assault is usually two or three per week. Many of the incidents are not reported for a variety of reasons. During recent workshops conducted in one of these off-road communities, village residents reported that the number one barrier to reporting is that the perpetrators’ family members become involved. If the perpetrator has a large volatile family, this adds to the danger. Often, an incident will set one family against another family. Many communities are currently torn apart with this type of reaction to violence against women. When an arrest is made, the victim, her advocate, and her family are usually blamed and become the target for retaliation. Victim blaming is still a significant problem.

In some cases, the perpetrator and/or his family threaten to commit future acts of violence. This is compounded by the slow or nonexistent response by the Alaska State Troopers. The lack of immediate response from law enforcement further endangers not only the victim and her family, but also advocates for the victims. This is the dangerous reality of women who are being abused in rural isolated Alaska where no form of law enforcement or no basic infrastructure exists to address violence against women. Because most communities are accessible only by air, endangered women cannot leave the community until a scheduled flight, which might be days later and can depend upon the weather.

In the interior region of Alaska, winter temperatures can drop to–40 degrees Fahrenheit, with average daylight lasting only three to four hours. The closest home might be anywhere from a mile to several miles away. Many times, seeking refuge at a neighbor’s home is not an option, especially in situations where infants or small children are involved. Also, many people are not very familiar with full faith and credit (see chapter 16) and may not want to become involved with a case coming from a different village.

Women and children are not safe in these communities. The traditional attitude that women and children are sacred needs to be reintroduced and relearned through the traditional teachings of our people. Each community needs to be responsible for teaching nonviolent living by reintroducing the cultural concept of respect for all things and one another. Many of the domestic violence and sexual assault workshops that have been held in these villages are based on the Western (Anglo-American) feminist model, which has little or no effect on the abusers. The residents of these communities need to take ownership of the problem and develop their own solutions. This needs to happen now. We cannot depend on outsiders to tell us what the problem is or how to address it. It needs to come from the residents themselves. The only method that can work is our traditional method of teaching and learning. We know of no other technique that even stands a chance of working.

The core value of respect, which provided our people with checks and balances on appropriate behavior, is no longer as effective as it once was. As this concept of respect was eroded so was the well-being and safety of our people. Violence has become an everyday event. There is not a day that goes by when the Alaska Native Women’s Coalition does not hear of a women being beaten or raped. There continues to be a very high tolerance for domestic abuse. Young girls are being violated sexually, and the perpetrators are not held accountable. Arrests are infrequent. Women are being beaten and abused, and the perpetrators are not held accountable. The victim’s safety is jeopardized. The victim is often blamed.

Tribes are now beginning to realize that they have jurisdiction over their tribal members and that incidents happening in their community are as much their responsibility as they are the state’s. Through tribal court training and workshops, they are beginning to exercise their jurisdictional muscle. Many were provided with generic domestic relation ordinances and sample tribal protective orders. A few have issued them. The fact remains that if there is no form of law enforcement in the community and the tribal courts and councils have not received training in just what constitutes these acts of violence or have not taken the time to organize a team to enforce the orders and keep the women safe, then these protective orders are ineffective and further burden the victim.

At the village level, many people still do not understand the process and the idea of protection orders. The only people who are very familiar with the orders and the state judicial system are the ones who have experienced them. Unfortunately, they are the perpetrators. They become well-versed in the legal system and use it to their benefit, going so far as to challenge the tribal orders. Controversial cases can arise if there are allegations that the tribe did not provide due process. Tribes need to realize that the safest way to avoid challenges from the state government is to provide notice, an opportunity to be heard, and fair hearings. Impartiality is still a problem in many communities where tribal leaders are related to the perpetrators.

Small airline companies (“bush pilots”) play a significant role in Alaska because they are the only form of transportation for many villages. Since a banished perpetrator can only return to the village if he can purchase an airline ticket, these air carriers are a critical link in providing safety to women. Air carrier recognition of tribal protective orders and cooperation has been occurring in Alaska, but not consistently. A handful of air carriers serving tribal communities were familiar with the state protective orders but not many with tribal protective orders. A majority of these air carriers did not seem to realize that tribes have the authority to issue protective orders. Here, then, is another area in which training needs to be done relative to tribal protective orders in rural Alaska.

Some of our tribal communities have issued tribal protective orders and have successfully used the central registry system, which is part of the Alaska Public Safety Information Network (APSIN). Inclusion in the state registry system increases the likelihood that a protection order will be enforced. Currently, state law only allows protective orders issued by or filed with a court of this state to be placed into the APSIN.

Additionally, some tribes have issued a tribal protection order in which the petitioner is the whole community. Since the central registry system is set up to accommodate only orders that contain seven required elements and in which the petitioner is one person, these types of tribal protection orders could not be entered into the system. Fortunately, some tribal protection orders are now being issued and enforced in a large part by some community members themselves. Other tribal villages have issued protective orders that mirrored the state’s. These were entered into the APSIN system with little or no difficulty and enforced by both the state and tribal officials. The problem remains, however, with perpetrators who are related to tribal leaders. In these cases, we find that there is no tribal enforcement of protection orders.

In my prior capacity as the STOP Violence Against Indian Women coordinator for one of the regional nonprofits, we purported to provide services to forty-three of the villages in Alaska. Realistically, this was not happening and could not happen. Although women were calling on a daily basis for advocacy assistance, we were not successful in organizing efforts at the local level for these villages to address violence perpetuated against women and children. Our efforts to develop a local Community Response Plan to Address Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault were not successful. We found that there was a very high burnout rate among village advocates as well as tribal staff. Additionally, village leadership changes every two years. Consequently, continuity as to who, at the village level, is addressing violence against women and children was almost nonexistent.

Vision of Hope

The Alaska Native Women’s Coalition (ANWC) was developed in 2001. The need for this coalition arose out of continued concern about the safety of Native women in Alaska. Formed by and for Native women, the Coalition seeks to work toward the elimination of personal and societal violence in the lives of women and children. Survivors’ voices have brought to the forefront an invaluable expression of the Alaska Native women’s realities. Through these voices, the current challenges and barriers to the safety of women and children living in remote, isolated villages have been identified and documented. Consistent dialogue with tribes has resulted in the development of community-based, culturally responsive projects currently being piloted in selected tribal communities. ANWC continues to focus on reclaiming customary values and beliefs that prohibited violence against Native women and children. The tribal communities are provided with the opportunity to take ownership of the problem and its solutions. Many are concluding that strengthening sovereignty seems to be a realistic goal.

With urban resources many miles away, tribal residents are beginning to realize that the solution to these problems lies within the community. Some communities are beginning to take ownership of the problem of violence against women and children. Villages are beginning to develop an effective, community-specific approach to addressing violence against women and children through the revitalization of the cultural values and beliefs. Additionally, we are working to reestablish the role of our respected elders as teachers. For example, in one of our smaller tribal communities the residents are working hard to implement projects that occur in a cultural setting, such as a fish camp. With the elders as teachers, residents are actively pursuing projects that focus on nonviolent lifestyles. Curricula are being developed stressing the indigenous concept of respect for all things. The traditional message that to violate another brings shame not only to self, but to the family, ancestors, and the future familial lineage is being reinforced. More tribal members are intertwining contemporary judicial approaches with their traditional, indigenous beliefs.

Many tribal councils are taking a more active role in providing safety for women and children. Village service providers are being trained to intervene in incidents of violence with the safety of women and children as their highest priority. An influential component of the development of the community response is that tribal residents are realizing and articulating that violence against women and children will no longer be tolerated and accepted. In that lies the hope for building a safer more respectful tribal community.

Notes

1
  522 US. 520 (1998).

2
  
1999 Annual Statistical Report
(Anchorage Police Department, 1999), available at
http://www.muni.org/iceimages/APDI/99UCR.pdf
.

3
  See
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CAVNET_1W/message/1598
.

4
  J. Burger,
Gaia Atlas of First Peoples
(New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1990); P. Knudtson and D. Suzuki,
Wisdom of the Elders
(Toronto: Stoddard, 1992).

5
  L.T. Smith,
Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous People
(London, New York: Zed Books, 1999).

6
  Milton M.R. Freeman and Ludwig N. Carbyn,
Traditional Knowledge and Renewable Resource Management in Northern Region
(Edmonton: IUCN Commission on Ecology and the Boreal Institute for Northern Studies, 1988).

7
  Personal interview with Eleanor David, Koyukuk, Alaska, June 2000. Eliza Jones is a very well-respected elder with many years of teaching, documenting, and researching the Koyukon Athabascan language.

8
  Personal interview with Eleanor David, Allakaket, Alaska, February 2000. Effie Williams was eighty years old at the time and still upholds these traditional values and beliefs.

9
  Catherine Attla,
Make Prayers to the Raven
(video, 1987). Catherine Attla, a respected elder from Huslia, Alaska, is very well known for her contribution to the teachings of the traditional Athabascan lifeways.

10
  Oscar A. Kawagley,
A
Yupiaq Worldview: Pathway to Ecology and Spirit
(Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1995).

11
  Shawn Wilson,
Gwitch’in Native Elders
(Alaska Native Knowledge Network, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 1996).

12
  M. Muktoyuk,
Inupiaq Rules For Living
(Anchorage: Alaska Methodist University Press, 1988).

13
  Kawagley,
Yupiaq Worldview,
74.

14
  ANCSA 43 USC Sec. 1601.

15
  AS 18.65.530.

16
  Case No. 3AN-00-12245 CI.

Questions

1. What are barriers that Alaska Native people face when dealing with violence against women that are unique to their state and people?
   
2. What are some of Ned-Sunnyboy’s suggestions for fighting these barriers? Do you agree?
   
3. How do the Venetie decision and Public Law 280 complicate domestic violence and sexual assault issues in Alaska? Who has jurisdiction over these crimes occurring in Native villages in Alaska?
   
4. What does Ned-Sunnyboy mean when she says that boarding schools led to a “gap in traditional learning that is being felt in most remote Alaskan Villages to this day”? How does this relate to domestic violence and sexual assault?
   
5. Why does the author consult with elders and make a point about
   K’ondonsts’itnee?
   
6. How do state laws discriminate against remote Alaska Native villages and women?
   
7. What are some internal community problems that Ned-Sunnyboy addresses that present barriers to dealing with violence against women at a community level?