What causes the high rates of violence against women among several indigenous communities?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1h3vkty/what_causes_the_high_rates_of_violence_against/

created by [deleted] on 01/12/2024 at 04:53 UTC

100 upvotes, 11 top-level comments (showing 11)

Inspired by this recent news story: How much longer must Aboriginal women be maimed and murdered by domestic violence before Australia listens?

I get that some people will just say "*see Australia is looking for excuses to go after Indigenous people again*". But this isn't just an Australian problem - I've seen news stories about the indigenous communities of New Zealand, Canada and Greenland being accused of high rates of violence against women. Are they merely looking for excuses to demonise and oppress their indigenous people, or is this a genuine problem?

Obviously, these indigenous communities have very different cultures and religions from one another (not to mention each country treated their indigenous groups differently).

As far as I know, their traditional religions do **not** command "*thou shalt rape*". Is their high rates of violence against women simply a result of intergenerational trauma stemming from a history of oppression, or is there more to it?

Comments

Comment by Ok-Championship-2036 at 01/12/2024 at 13:24 UTC

44 upvotes, 3 direct replies

Theres extremely little oversight or consequence for violence against MMIW.

The highly dramatized movie "wind river" was an attempt to highlight this. In the US (where the movie is set), crimes on reservation land are often considered to be under rhe jurisdiction of tribal police. The issue with this is that tribal police lack resources, infrastructure, staff, and credibility with other police forces. They dont have the same ability to prosecute or enforce laws, and they dont have any jurisdiction over people once they leave reservation land. In the movie, there are camps of oil miners or pipeline construction people idr who are essentially private contractors. They strayed into reservation land and did kidnappings because the tribal police couldnt follow or prosecute. This is a specific example but it captures the futility and institutional barriers that come up for indigenous groups who try to enforce laws against criminal outsiders of a dominant caste/ethnicity. I dont recommend this movie, its not intended to be educational. I only reference it to showcase a common situation/issue that MMIW face.

MMIW USA https://www.bia.gov/service/mmu/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-people-crisis

USA and Canada https://www.safv.org/mmiwg2s

Comment by FlowGentlySweetAfton at 02/12/2024 at 04:06 UTC

9 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Indigenous Tribes in the United States are considered domestic, dependent nations (Cherokee v Georgia). This means that Tribes and their Tribal Courts have the right to criminally prosecute Native for civil and criminal offenses committed on the Reservation.

Tribes CAN NOT prosecute non-Indians for crimes committed on Reservations (Olyphant v Suquamish). The investigation and subsequent prosecution of criminal cases (see The Major Crimes Act) falls to the FBI and the US District Courts. Historically, the FBI has been unwilling to extend their time and agent resources into Indian Country. Crimes can't be prosecuted if they are never investigated. Statistics tell us that 86 to 96% ofsexual violence against Native women is committed by non-Indigenous perpetrators who are never brought to justice.

I am an enrolled member of a Federally Recognized Tribe and reside on one of the three Reservations in Eastern Washington. For decades, non-Indians essentially had free reign to commit anything short of, and sometimes even murder on Reservations without fear of prosecution. Federal law enforcement agencies wouldn't exert their jurisdiction unless a case promised to be a career maker. Investigating and prosecuting non-Natives for physically and/or sexually abusing their Native spouse and/or children wasn't a promotion path. People who do bad things usually require the fear of a consequence or an actual consequence to modify their behavior. There really hasn't been consequences for those who hurt and kill Native women.

Recent media attention has raised public awareness regarding the MMIW crisis. That attention has been the catalyst for the creation of multi-agency and cross jurisdictional task forces that seek address the crisis at the systematic level. While encouraging progress has been made, there is still a long way go.

Violence against Native women is nothing new. It started in 1492 and has never stopped.

Comment by fluffykitten55 at 01/12/2024 at 06:33 UTC*

68 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Beyond the obvious poverty related social problems etc. I suspect that to some large extent it is because of the destruction of the traditional gender roles and associated mode of living, and the adoption of new ones that leave indigenous men and women both with quite low status, due to for example their low level of employment.

Healthy family life seems to depend on a high degree of mutual respect but this is difficult when one or more of the adults in some family do not meet the social expectations set by the prevailing social norms. I have seen many instances where some seemingly minor issue has led to huge fights because there is a sort of background resentment for someone due to them not meeting these sorts of expectations. Or something that would be a minor thing for a richer family like someone wasting $100 on some silly purchase or a bender or a fine leads to strife as this is actually a meaningful cost, it might e.g. mean having to drastically cut back on food purchases, or to borrow money etc. Then someone gets called a stupid useless person, they get upset and retaliate, and it escalates to violence.

Now in most indigenous communities, males are expected to, as in the background non indigenous culture, earn some steady income through waged labour, but in many cases this does not occur, for well discussed reasons, but a big factor is that many of these communities are isolated and have no nearby industry. Then you have a situation where these men expect a certain degree of respect (possibly to some extent because they are accorded it under the traditional indigenous norms) but do not get it (and in many cases they actually are quite unreliable in a way that makes life difficult for their female partners) and then this is a cause of frustration and in many cases violence.

Comment by clown_sugars at 01/12/2024 at 23:54 UTC

7 upvotes, 0 direct replies

In the Australian context, three major factors drive violence.

The first is the extreme poverty that many remote Indigenous communities face. There are often limited opportunities for employment and sometimes the entire community is funded through welfare. The stress of poverty encourages alcohol and narcotic use, which intensifies violence. Communities have incredibly strong cultural ties to the land, so "moving" people to more economically viable areas cannot occur.

The second is the general lack of police interest or resources in these communities. Many are often hundreds of kilometres away from one another, let alone the major cities. Police may be called in to investigate domestic violence, but if there is no explicit evidence (or they simply ignore it occurring) then there are no prosecutions. Sometimes there are language barriers as well.[1] Sexual violence crimes are often impossible to investigate if the victim refuses to cooperate with police, which is totally understandable given that they may have to return to their abuser and face more violence. Sometimes people witness violence and choose not to report it to police, because they are worried about other investigations occurring (illegal alcohol in a community or prostitution). Police violence against Indigenous People (especially historically) contributes in a major way.

1: https://www.indigenoushpf.gov.au/measures/2-04-literacy-and-numeracy

The third factor that you correctly identified is the issue of culture. There are thousands of distinct indigenous groups in Australia, and they had incredibly different views in relation to the treatment of women and children within a community. Some were more matriarchal or egalitarian, and others extremely patriarchal. The killing of women for various crimes was a norm for some communities. In the contemporary context, people raised within domestic violence (and who never see alternative family relationships) are much more likely to see violence as a normal, or at least common, practice.

Comment by [deleted] at 01/12/2024 at 07:45 UTC

35 upvotes, 0 direct replies

[removed]

Comment by tempuramores at 01/12/2024 at 14:56 UTC

17 upvotes, 0 direct replies

This is a bit speculative, but I would imagine that a culture where people are disenfranchised and minoritized on a systemic level for several generations might reproduce power dynamics of the dominant (i.e. non-indigenous) majority, including along gendered lines.

Let's look at a question that's sometimes asked in r/AskHistorians - why poor Southern whites in the 19th century United States, who often lived in grinding poverty and were disenfranchised on nearly every level, did not find common cause with enslaved Black people and rise up together against the rich white Southern elites, who were landowners and slavers and oppressed the poor whites as well as the Black people they enslaved (if not nearly as much – being poor and free is definitely still better than being enslaved). A lot of the time, people are looking for ways to feel better about themselves when they are in a bad situation from which they can find no escape. This is one of the reasons why IN GENERAL, not just in certain communities, men sometimes abuse women, why parents sometimes abuse children, etc. Why Russian peasants living in misery in Tsarist Russia blamed the Jews (a minority population) for their problems instead of blaming the aristocracy that kept them in serfdom.

When people are miserable and see no way out, they vent their problems on those in or around their communities who are even more vulnerable. This creates more trauma, which initiates and perpetuates a cycle which is difficult to end.

Comment by [deleted] at 01/12/2024 at 10:04 UTC

19 upvotes, 1 direct replies

By coicidence there's an article posted on anthroplogy at the moment that found hunter-gatherer groups seem less patriarchal, such as more equal division of domestic chores regardless. But didn't mention domestic violence or the indigenous classifier.

Anyway your article gives a clue doesn't it, "Aboriginal women who fear their partners may kill them are often just as fearful of police."

Links through to the coronors recommendations which gives other ideas of causation, such as

Boost funding for Aboriginal interpreter services.

Create and implement an evidence-based strategy to reduce alcohol availability.

Increase investment in specialist alcohol and other drugs rehabilitation services.

police to embed interpreters and/or Aboriginal liaison officers in the emergency call centre.

Fund and implement "timely and intensive" early interventions for young people engaged in violence.

Fund culturally-appropriate, trauma-informed, mediation/peacekeeping for family and community violence.

consider how victims can be notified of the release of inmates.

Increase funding for men's prison-based behaviour programs and counselling.

Establish reintegration programs for men leaving prison and returning to community.

Better support for Aboriginal liaison officers in hospitals and clinics.

Mandatory 12-month trial of banned drinker register scanners in licensed venues.

Comment by Rad-eco at 01/12/2024 at 09:32 UTC*

14 upvotes, 3 direct replies

Its due to the violence of colonialism and patriarchy enforced on their communities, from the destruction of their culture to the residential schools to the propaganda that permeates the settler society about them.

https://www.iwgia.org/en/news/4863-violence-against-indigenous-women-a-global-challenge.html

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8321394/

https://lithub.com/how-colonialism-and-patriarchy-create-enduring-misery-for-native-american-women/

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.criaw-icref.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Local-Women-Matter-4-How-Colonialism-Affects-Women.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjR5bf-n4aKAxX2mokEHeHKINoQFnoECBkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0Gg7HAxYOCkUTPfQEPyHs1

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/download/6172/5360&ved=2ahUKEwjR5bf-n4aKAxX2mokEHeHKINoQFnoECE4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw3NMBSsaa-Xl_7YR0TVj7n_

https://decolonization.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/decolonizing-the-violence-against-indigenous-women/

Also, its racist to claim (assume) that indigenous men are more violent than white men simply because they are overrepresented in domestic dispute stats. Its analogous to what racist people say about black americans and crime, as they forget about the system of white supremacy that created such circumstances