Sexual Violence

[brianold]

I was reading this article and I was just reminded at how real an issue this is in so many communities.

So... while a long view (rediscovery of identity) approach may provide solutions to these types of problems, do little boys and girls have that much time to wait? Obviously both are the solution, not one. What is done in the short term approach? Shelters? Kids have to feel they can communicate with people outside of their homes, when the people inside of their homes are the ones hurting them.

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096413210

[mizzy]

Yep, it's really serious. I heard Cecelia F. speak in Michigan once and I say she is up to the task of making this change happen.

What's interesting to me is that for years Cecelia F. was also a Indian Child Welfare Act activist for much of her career. The ICWA is national legislation that creates a legal mechanism for tribes to act on behalf children who have been removed from their homes. For many years American Indian children were removed by social workers or families coerced to give up their children, and the ICWA has tried to change this. So it makes sense that one of the things that she has given serious consideration to is the possibility of providing surgical abortions to women who have been the victim of rape or incest... in so much that the ICWA was also about tribal sovereignty and the opening of a women's clinic at Pine Ridge is about asserting control over one's body. So, I really support the way she is defining sovereignty in so many respects.

This issue like no other has really sparked new ideas around the definition of sovereignty... sovereignty here is really immediate, pressing, already there, and operative.

I also have to comment on the choices made by the reporting of this article. It is also important to mention that women from Pine Ridge and other South Dakota reservations have been receiving abortion services... just not any where near where they live. Reports (will provide data if need be) detail the number of women who travel to state hospitals and out of state clinics to undergo surgical abortion.

On the subject of sexual violence.... What Cecelia and others are saying is that they are not going to live with the silence that protects perpetrators. This is a profound event that has occurred at Pine Ridge.

[brianold]

they are going to state hospitals even though there is a clinic at Pine Ridge?