Domestic Violence in American Indian Women

• Crime victimization rates in the American Indian community are significantly higher than in the general U.S. population. As a result of these high rates of violence, American Indian women are at high risk of homicide, including domestic violence. Homicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for Native women. Of Native American women murdered, over 75% were killed by a family member, an acquaintance, or someone they knew.
• The frequency of battering in Indian Country is believed to be much higher than the national norm. American Indians, in general, experience per capita rates of violence that are more than twice those of the resident population.
• American Indian women experience the highest rate of violence of any group in the United States.
• American Indian women stand a high risk of losing their children in instances of physical and sexual abuse.
• Three-fourths of American Indian women have experienced some type of sexual assault in their lives.
• Abusive relationships are based on the mistaken belief that one person has the right to control another.
• When the non violent methods of control fail to work, the person in power moves on to actual physical and sexual violence. The relationship is based on the exercise of power to gain and maintain control.
• 47% of women will be raped in their lifetime.
• 50% of women will be battered by their spouse/partner.
• 40% of women in prison for felonies are there because they killed an abusive partner/spouse.
• Women of color are 64% of the female prison population and serve longer sentences for the same crime as do white women or men of color.
• In the 1970s, it is estimated that 30% of all Puerto Rican women, and 25-40% of American Indian women were sterilized without their informed consent.
• Two-thirds of college men report they would consider raping a woman if they thought they would get away with it.
• Around 50,000 women per year are illegally trafficked into the US, where they end up in sex industries, domestic work, and sweatshops.
• The life expectancy of Native women in the US is 47 years.
• The International Human Rights Association of American Minorities has documented that more than 50,000 Native children have been killed in Indian residential schools.
  

Domestic Violence is not:

• genetically inherited
  
• caused by illness
  
• caused by alcohol or drugs
  
• the result of stress or anger
  
• due to “a bad temper”
  
• due to the behavior of the victim, children or a problem in the relationship

Domestic Violence is:

• a learned behavior
  
• Batterers learn from observations of other people, including family and friends

Physical abuse: This includes acts in which physical force is used to coerce the victim. This might include pushing, shoving, or being held against her will; slapped, kicked, bit, choked or punched. He may throw objects, locked her out or the house, abandon her in a dangerous place or force her into a dangerous situation. There may be threats or use of weapons and rape.

Sexual Abuse: Sexual abuse is most often thought of as rape or forced sexual actions. It can also include forced undressing or watching of sexual acts. Forced sex when in danger, sick or after a beating are also forms of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse might also include anti-woman or demeaning jokes or name-calling (frigid, whore) intended to degrade the victim. A woman might be treated as a sexual object and be made to dress in a sexual manner with which she is not comfortable. There may be jealous accusations regarding sex or the abuser may minimize his partner’s feelings about sex.

Emotional/ Mental Abuse: In emotional or mental abuse the victim’s feelings may be ignored and minimized while excessive attention is demanded to the abusers needs. He may ridicule the victim or women as a group with the intent to degrade her. He may also ridicule her beliefs, values, religion, class, heritage or race. As punishment there may be withholding of approval or name calling. He may isolate her by driving away friends and /or family. She may be kept from working or be forced to work. He may demand complete control of money and refuse to share the workload. He may threaten to take the children or abuse her pets. Manipulation with lies and contradictions is abusive behavior, as are threats of violence, suicide, and homicide.