Tribal Resources

This guide contains information on protection orders and Native American women and domestic and sexual violence. It provides specific information on the barriers to justice faced by Native women and tribal communities. The guide contains guidance for practitioners and discipline-specific resources.

A general introduction to the social and legal issues involved in acts of violence against Native women, this book's contributors are lawyers, social workers, social scientists, writers, poets, and victims. In the U.S. Native women are more likely than women from any other group to suffer violence, from rape and battery to more subtle forms of abuse, and Sharing Our Stories of Survival explores the causes and consequences of such behavior. The stories and case-studies presented here are often painful and raw, and the statistics are overwhelmingly grim; but a countervailing theme also runs through this extremely informative volume: Many of the women who appear in these pages are survivors, often strengthened by their travails, and the violence examined here is human violence, meaning that it can be changed, if only with much effort and education. The first step is to lay out the truth for all to see, and that is the purpose accomplished by this book.

This manual was created to specifically outline the process of building a Coordinated Community Response (CCR) in Native communities. A CCR, simply stated, is a monitoring and tracking system that establishes women’s safety by focusing on batterers and their activity. This is done through a multi-agency collaboration with individuals dedicated to developing a response to domestic violence by implementing policies and practices to ensure batterer accountability. Each agency develops a role within this collaboration, ensuring a consistent response from law enforcement, prosecutors, judges and probation officers. The many complex jurisdictional and legal issues that exist in Indian country make it difficult to pose a single organizing model that is relevant to all Native communities. This manual separates the creation of building a Coordinated Community Response into a framework for general use, suggesting ways to customize this practice to suit the needs of diverse communities.

An Overview of Shelter and Advocacy Program Development Supporting Women's Sovereignty
Domestic violence is a human rights issue as well as a criminal justice issue. This report presents a social change model that can be used to develop shelter and advocacy programs to combat domestic violence and establish the sovereignty of Native American women. The report is divided into three sections. The first section is entitled The Roots: Program Belief System, and is a discussion of the need to establish a philosophy and mission statement to combat domestic violence and support the sovereignty of women. The second section, The Trunk: Contributors, describes what needs to be done in the planning and development stage of establishing a grassroots advocacy program. The third section, The Branches: Response, discusses how advocacy programs can be used to bring about social change and work towards improving women’s safety and establishing women’s sovereignty.

In 2005, the movement for the safety of Native women led the struggle to include under the Violence Against Women Act a separate title for Native women called Safety for Indian Women. One of the findings of this title was that during the period of 1979 through 1992, homicide was the third-leading cause of death of Indian females aged 15 to 34, and 75 percent were killed by family members or acquaintances. Since that time, a study by the U.S. Department of Justice has found that in some tribal communities, American Indian women face murder rates that are more than 10 times the national average. Over the last decade awareness of this national issue has increased but more must be done at all levels to stop the disappearances and save lives.

What is human trafficking and what does it look like in Indigenous, tribal communities? What can tribal communities do to address it?