Hearing their Voices: The Persistence of Violence Against Native American Women and Girls, Understanding the Past to Address the Present
Patina Park, JD | September 20 | 9:00-10:00 AM | Room 2591
Topic: Legal | Knowledge Level: Intermediate, Advanced
Violence against Native women and girls has been part of the history of this continent since first contact over 500 years ago. The legal, social, and moral history with Indigenous women and girls in this country has cultivated a modern environment where 1 in 3 Native American women are raped in their lifetime and are 2.5 times more likely to be raped than women in general in the United States. Jurisdictional difficulties exist in a state/tribal/federal system which make prosecution and ensuring safety extremely difficult. This workshop will show how the past has framed the way dominant culture views Native women and girls in modern times and how it perpetuates continued violence and fetishism against Native women and Girls. Attendees will learn how jurisdictional gaps in enforcement can be addressed and will discover how a reconciliation process in the United States to acknowledge the violent history with the Indigenous people is a necessary step towards healing and ending the violence against Indigenous women and girls.
Presentation Objectives:
· Discuss the historical experience of colonization and its impact on violence of Indigenous women and girls.
· Illustrate how fetishism and cultural appropriation is grounded in the historic experience and contributes to continued violence against Indigenous women and girls.
· Outline the jurisdictional challenges that exist in Indian Country based on federal law that is grounded in genocide or erasure of Indigenous peoples.
· Identify solutions to the legal jurisdictional problems and how to be an authentic ally.