More than half of Native American women have been sexually assaulted, including over a third who have been raped during their lifetime — a rate of rape nearly 2.5 times higher than for white women, according to a 2016 National Institute of Justice study.
Unlike women of every other racial group, Native American women are more likely to be sexually assaulted by people who are not Native American. A study by the University of Delaware and the University of North Carolina found that more than two-thirds of sexual assaults against indigenous women are committed by white and other non-Native American people.
Yet non-native men who assault Native American women on reservations can’t be arrested or prosecuted by tribal authorities under a 1978 Supreme Court decision.
“If a white person commits murder or rape against a Native American person, the federal government would have jurisdiction over those crimes, instead of the tribe or state government,” said Cheryl Bennett, an Arizona State University professor who studies hate crimes targeting indigenous peoples.
But when tribal law enforcement sent sexual-abuse cases to the FBI and U.S. Attorney Offices, federal prosecutors declined more than two-thirds of them, according to a 2010 Government Accountability Office report.
The problem is particularly acute in the 200,000-square-mile Bakken region straddling the Montana-North Dakota state line, where attacks on Native American women have increased as tens of thousands of transient oil workers flow into temporary housing units called “man camps” on and near tribal lands. More here.