(MintPress) – President Obama signed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) into law Thursday, a historic piece of legislation that will extend $660 million over five years by providing grants to law enforcement and assistance to women recovering from physical abuse.
Proponents of Native American sovereignty have hailed the bill as an important step forward allowing tribal authorities to investigate cases of domestic abuse on the 310 recognized Indian reservations nationwide. For years, Indigenous groups have claimed that state and federal authorities have failed to properly investigate cases of violence against Native American women, especially in more rural areas.
Increasing protection for Native women
“All women deserve the right to live free from fear,” President Obama said during the signing ceremony Thursday. The legislation renews the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, making it easier for authorities to prosecute crimes against women in federal courts. The bill also provides services like domestic abuse hotlines and shelters for battered women.
One provision of the law delegates increased legal jurisdiction to Native American authorities, expected to decrease violence against Indian women who suffer rates of abuse double the national average. Forty percent of Native women suffer violence from a spouse. More than 30 percent of Native women are raped in their lifetimes, according to statistics gathered by Futures Without Violence, an organization working to advance the health and well-being of women and girls.
According to the 2010 U.S. Census, there are 2.1 million Native Americans in the United States; approximately 700,000 live on tribal land. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) does not affect the legal status of these individuals, but does extend the same rule of law to non-Indians residing or visiting native land.
“For a tribal nation, it’s just absurd that (authority) doesn’t exist,” said Sheri Freemont, director of the Family Advocacy Center on the Salt River Pima Maricopa reservation in Arizona. “People choose to either work, live or play in Indian Country. I think they should be subject to Indian Country rules.”
About 77 percent of people living in American Indian and Alaska Native areas are non-Indian, according to Census reports. The Justice Department reports that roughly half of American Indian women are married to non-Indians.
Native American women suffer incidents of domestic violence at rates more than double national averages. More than half of cases involving non-Indians go unprosecuted because Indian courts lack jurisdiction and because federal prosecutors often have too few resources to try cases on isolated reservations.
The Violence Against Women Act could be a game changer for thousands of Native women who suffer from abuse each year. Because there are few resources to help victims and prosecute criminals, little is known about the full magnitude of crimes.
A 2006 independent study published in American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research found that 96 percent of Native women surveyed had been raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime.
“I was a victim of child sex abuse by 16 people over the course of my entire childhood, not just one specific incident. That’s the type of environment I grew up in. It was just non-stop violations, you know, ungodly violence,” said Lisa Brunner, a member of the White Earth Nation in Minnesota.
The current VAMA overturns the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe. The ruling found that that tribal law did not apply to non-native people living on or visiting native lands.
Indian reservations were first established in 1851 with the passage of the Indian Appropriations Act.
Issues of tribal sovereignty
The other issue at play is the matter of tribal sovereignty. The VAMA follows a $3.4 billion settlement with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. The historic settlement comes after years of federal mismanagement of Indian funds. The initial agreement was outlined in 2009 and approved by Congress November 2010.
Fifty thousand American Indians across Oklahoma will be receiving some sort of financial settlement from this historic case.
Tribes are hopeful that the settlement money can be put to use improving the infrastructure and quality of life on reservations, among the poorest areas in the United States. In 2010, the poverty rate on reservations was 28.4 percent. Fourteen percent of reservation homes are still without electricity and 20 percent lack indoor plumbing.
There is still some legal ambiguity about the relationship tribes have to the U.S. government. The legal status of tribes were thrown into question in 2010 when the Iroquois Nation lacrosse team encountered difficulty using tribal issued passports for travel abroad. Previously, Native tribes were allowed to travel abroad using tribal passports.
This changed after 9/11, when the U.S. government increased passport regulatory controls. Many Native Americans refused on principle to get U.S. passports since most do not see themselves as U.S. citizens but as members of Indian nations.
This all became an issue in June 2010 when the United Kingdom refused to issue visas to the Iroquois team members without an assurance that the United States would allow the team to re-enter the United States.