Sharing Our Stories of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence (18 page)

In Your Community

1. Do you agree with Ned-Sunnyboy’s call to traditional values of respect and tribal responsibility in combating violence against women? What are some local responses and ideas for these issues in your community?
   
2. Is it difficult for women in your community to obtain protective orders? Do police respond to domestic violence calls in a timely manner?
   
3. Are there Native advocates for women in your community? What challenges do they face?
   
4. How is the situation in Alaska similar or different to what your community faces when dealing with violence against women?
   

Terms Used in Chapter 4

Infiltrate:
To penetrate, especially with hostile intent.

Injunction
: A court order prohibiting a party from a specific course of action.

Jurisdiction
: The area in which a government has the right and power to make decisions.

Per capita:
“By heads”; by the number of individual persons.

Writ:
A written order issued by a court, commanding the party to whom it is addressed to perform or cease performing a specified act.

Suggested Further Reading

Magen, Randy H., and Darryl S. Wood.
Intimate Partner Violence Against AHTNA (Alaska Native) Women in the Copper River Basin.
University of Alaska Anchorage, July 2006, available at
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdfntesl/nij/grants/215350.pdf
.

Nella, Lee. “Scattered Like Reindeer: Alaska Natives and the Loss of Autonomy.” In
Native Americans and the Criminal Justice System,
Jeffery Ian Ross and Larry Gould, eds., p. 217. Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2006.

Rosay, André, and Robert H. Langworthy.
Descriptive Analysis of Sexual Assaults in Anchorage
,
Alaska.
Justice Center, University of Alaska, 2003.

Segal, Bernard. “Responding to Victimized Alaska Native Women in Treatment for Substance Use.”
Substance Use & Misuse
36 (2001): 845, 851.

Shephard, Judy. “Where Do You Go When It’s 40 Below? Domestic Violence Among Rural Alaska Native Women”
Affilia
16 (2001): 488.

Kitchen Table Wisdom

Afterwards I sat alone
By the kitchen table
Listening to the same wind
Batter the same wood
Holding our little house together
But nothing
Held me together
Or so I thought.

Years later
Grown daughters say
They hid at the top of the stairs
Watching me cry quietly
Shoulders bent under the weight
Of all village women
I would suddenly hush
If they showed themselves
So they left in the comfort of the table
Knowing I needed
Warm tears
To sooth purple cheeks.

The curled column of blue smoke
Off the end of my pipe
My swollen eyes followed
As the memory of stinging slaps
Etched deeper in my wrinkled brain
Imprinting forever the sickening feel of soft flesh
Pummeled by familiar fists
Again and again.

Clock ticking away hours
Into minutes before the kids would get up
And I was caught in the act
Of pretending
Nothing happened
While I cooked breakfast
And smiled.

People talk about shelters
But in the village
Shelter came after he left the house
Freeing the kitchen table
In the warm sunlight.

Didn’t dare
Cry to anyone
Because if they helped
They might also get beat
For seeing the truth.

Told the magistrate one time
He laughed
Told me to leave
Smoked pot at our wedding
So his lips were forever sealed
With the ‘good old boy’ kiss.

Years later
After many dark nights of the soul
Sitting at the kitchen table
I realized there are no victims
Only volunteers
Keep leaving and
Trust the wisdom
Gleaned from the kitchen table
As the clock ticks away
Remember the pain
Someday you’ll decide not to go back.

Margaret “Augie” Kochuten (Quinault)

Chapter 5

Overview of Issues Facing Native Women Who Are Survivors of Violence in Urban Communities

ROSE L. CLARK AND CARRIE L. JOHNSON

N
ative women in urban communities are challenged with many risks and barriers. Historically, violence against Native women was not common. Women were valued in the culture. Today Native women are victims of violence at a higher rate than any other ethnic group. Forms of violence against Native women include physical, economic, verbal, and sexual, as well as
stalking
. The physical, environmental, social, and psychological conditions that confront Native women are well documented. Factors that have contributed to the high rates of violence include multigenerational trauma, poverty, high rates of unemployment, survivors exposed to violence as children, as well as alcohol and substance abuse.

Although the majority of Natives live in urban areas, there is often a serious lack of culturally appropriate resources or services in urban areas for Native women who are victims of violence. This lack of culturally appropriate services or resources includes service providers not having an understanding of the culture and traditions of Native people. Due to the lack of cultural competence and awareness among some service providers, Native women may be hesitant to disclose the violence. Other culturally appropriate services or resources that may be lacking include incorporating the traditions and values of the individual in the services such as incorporating traditional healing, if appropriate. Native women living in urban areas often face unique legal, social, and economic challenges. Urban Native survivors of domestic violence are further challenged by language barriers, lack of necessary skills to navigate the health and social systems, and competing cultural practices that constrict choices in seeking safety from violence. Because urban Native women tend to reside near and blend in with other ethnic groups, they are often overshadowed by other more highly visible and identifiable groups, which contributes to the lack of services targeted for and delivered to urban Native women.

Prevalence and Incidence of Violence among Native Women in Urban Areas

Despite an outpouring of research over the past twenty years, many serious gaps exist in the understanding of violence against women, particularly among urban Native women. There is very little information on the extent and prevalence of domestic violence among urban Native women. The data that has been gathered is based in large part on reservation samples. Contributing to the lack of data available on urban Native women are racial misclassification, collapsing urban Native women into an “other” category; poor and inconsistent data reporting methods; and a lack of centralized data collection within the urban social and health systems.
¹
These issues only compound the barriers that exist for Native women living in urban environments and often render them invisible to the general public.

The rates of violence among urban Native women, who are far from a homogenous group, vary markedly within the Native population. Some regions of tribes and urban Natives have been affected by violence to a much greater extent than others. There is also a significant correlation between substance abuse and violence.
²
What we do not know is the interpretation of this correlation. It is not clear whether domestic violence causes substance abuse or whether substance abuse causes domestic violence. In addition, substance abuse is neither necessary nor a sufficient explanation for violent behavior because its influence is dependent on several contextual factors, such as history of victimization. When reviewing the literature and research regarding the relationship between domestic violence and substance abuse, it is particularly important to avoid its victim-blaming potential. The intent of the authors is to bring awareness to the relationship between domestic violence and substance abuse so that a coordinated system of care may be developed to address Native women’s needs.

In a recent study on domestic violence and substance use among Native women living in rural and urban nonreservation sites in California, there were three main predictors that emerged for recent violence for these women.
³
These included severe childhood violent victimization, low-income status, and problem drinking. One of the strongest predictors was severe childhood violence. Native women with experiences of severe childhood violence were 6.5 times as likely to report recent violence than those who did not have such experiences. Similarly, Native women identified as problem drinkers were 5.5 times more likely to experience recent violence. Native women having an income under $20,000 a year were 4.9 times more likely to be victims of violence in the past twelve months. Other predictors emerged as well. Not surprisingly, Native women whose attitudes reflected tolerance of physical fighting and violence were 6.6 times more likely to experience recent violent victimization. Finally, Native women who reported more experiences of prejudice and racism from non-Indians were 4.4 times more likely to report being victimized in the past twelve months.

The study “Pregnant and Parenting American Indian Needs” included 290 respondents in one urban and one rural area in California. This study found many Native women reported personal experiences of lifetime victimization, with higher rates found among the alcohol- or drug-involved group. In fact, 43 percent of the alcohol- or drug-involved group reported being attacked with a gun, knife, or other weapon. Even more (64 percent) reported that they had been attacked with the intent to seriously injure them without a weapon being involved. Finally, 36 percent reported they had been forced into a sexual act through force or threat of force.
⁴

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in their report
American Indians and Crime
, Natives have a violent crime victimization rate that is 2.5 times higher than the national rate (101 violent crimes per 1,000 vs. 41 per 1,000, respectively). Further, the violent crime rate was highest for Natives living in urban rather than rural areas (130 per 1,000 for urban and 81 per 1,000 for rural). While Natives experienced higher rates of violent victimization than persons of other races at every income level, Natives with an annual income of less than $10,000 reported the highest rate of violent victimization (182 per 1,000). Of particular note is that more than half the violent victimization of Natives involved offenders with whom the victim had a prior relationship, and about one in five violent acts against Natives involved an offender who was an intimate family member. While violent crime against whites and blacks is primarily intraracial, the majority of Native victims reported their offender as white (57 percent) and black (9 percent), while almost a third (30 percent) were victimized by other Natives. Such statistics illustrate that Natives who are living in urban areas and who are struggling with severe poverty—increasingly. Native women—are among the highest at risk for violent criminal victimization.
⁵

Native women report rape and sexual assault at a rate two times greater than the overall population (5 per 1,000 for Native compared to 2 per 1,000 for all races). Native victims of rape or sexual assault most often reported that their offender was of a different race, with about nine in ten victims estimated to have assailants who were white or black. Native women were significantly more likely than white women, African American women, or mixed race women to report they were raped. They were also significantly more likely than white or African American women to report that they were stalked.
⁶

Native women who are at highest risk for violence are those who have interracial marriages or relationships—women who are more likely to live in urban centers than reservations or rural areas. In metropolitan areas, these women may be at a greater risk of violence because they may be increasingly isolated from their extended family or cultural group, which might otherwise serve as a protective factor against violence.

Alcohol and drug use is significantly positively correlated with intimate and family violence among all racial groups, and substance abuse has long been a major social problem among Natives. Nearly 62 percent of Native victims of violence reported that their offender had been drinking at the time of the offense compared to 42 percent for all races.
⁷
The risk associated with Native women is compelling when examining the issue of substance abuse and its relationship with violence. Alcohol-related death rates for Native women are significantly higher than the rate for women of all racial groups. A popular explanation for such high rates of alcohol and substance use among Native women is the notion of self-medication in the attempt to cope with prior victimization (including incest, rape, and sexual assault)—a cycle that contributes to higher rates of mortality and increased risk of revictimization.