Law Targets Abuse Of Native American Women
A new law comes into effect in the US this month designed to close a loophole that allows non-Indian men to attack women on Indian reservations and get away with it.
Reservations should be refuges for Native Americans, but for decades their isolation and anomalies in the law have also made them havens for sexual predators.
It's thought that a third of Native American women are raped in their lifetimes.
Some 86% of reported rapes on reservations are carried out by non-Indian men, according to the US Department of Justice.
"What's happened through US Federal law and policy is they created lands of impunity where this is like a playground for serial rapists, batterers, killers, whoever and our children aren't protected at all," said Lisa Brunner, executive director of Sacred Spirits First National Coalition.
Indian reservations have their own tribal laws and courts, but they cannot prosecute non-Indians.
State and federal authorities are generally too far away or do not have the resources to get involved in cases of sexual violence.
So white men are free to come onto reservations and attack Indian women and expect to get away with it.
"It's like a free range," Ms Brunner said. "Come and do what you want and they do come here hunting. I call it hunting because we're not the targets, we're the bulls-eye."
Ms Brunner has witnessed abuse at the hands of non-Indian men all her life. Her stepfather was one and beat her mother when she was a child.
Unknown to her at the time, her own daughters were raped and abused by a non-Indian known to the family when they were 10 and eight years old.
Her eldest daughter Faith said: "On the rides there I always made sure I sat in the front because I didn't want anything happening to my sister, but it ended up happening anyway," she said.
"He used to make me kiss him and things, then at night he would come into the room. I don't really remember much of that. I kind of blocked it out."
Two years ago Ms Brunner's other daughter was attacked by strangers as she walked to a party.
They pulled her into their SUV and raped her, she said.
They came prepared to carry out the attack, bringing condoms and bandanas to disguise their faces. They came to hunt, she said, and got away with it.
Ms Brunner has reported all the attacks against herself and her daughters, but none of their attackers have been brought to justice.
They are all non-Indians and authorities have failed to pursue investigations to the point of prosecution.
It is a familiar story on reservations across America.
The Violence Against Women Act comes into effect this month.
It allows tribal courts to prosecute non-Indian men for sexual violence against wives and girlfriends, but rapists who attack strangers will remain beyond the reach of the law.
Native Americans say it closes one loophole, but leaves another open which will continue to allow their women to be preyed upon by outsiders until the law is tightened further.
