Blog: Sexual assault at epidemic level among Native Americans

Tuesday, June 26, 2012  

"Rape is at epidemic levels among Native Americans. Some mothers seek out Plan B for “when” their daughters get raped — not “if.”

The numbers bear out their fears. In some rural villages, rapes are 12 times more common than the national rate, and for Native American women, generally sexual assault is more than twice as common as the national average, according to The New York Times. The Alaska Federation of Natives cites a 2010 report by the University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center, finding that while only 15.2 percent of Alaskans are Native American, they are the victims of 50 percent of the domestic violence and 61 percent of the sexual assaults committed in the state.

The vast majority of these crimes go unpunished. Local police, expected to prevent rapes and to respond quickly to reports of rapes, sometimes don’t respond at all. Hospitals lack the rape kits and cameras that would allow the collection of biological and photographic evidence to be used at trial. Most Native American rape victims don’t bother to take the nearly futile step of reporting rapes in the first place."

Get the Story:
Piper Hoffman: Sexual Assault Epidemic Against Native Americans – Will VAWA Help? (Care2 Causes 6/25)

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