Reports

In this section you will find a list of reports and brief summaries. It will be updated as more reports are published.

​Violence Against American Indian and Alaska Native Women and the Criminal Justice Response
​This report is focused on violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women. It found that American Indian and Alaska Native women face the highest rates of rape and other sexual assaults and the second highest rates of homicide victimization. This report also accounts for the criminal justice responses to violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women. It cites the Major Crimes Act (1885) and the Indian Civil Rights Act (1968) as two major obstacles in the prosecution of offenders in these cases and goes into detail on a number of other legal barriers, making recommendations for better handling violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women in the future.

Human Trafficking in Indian Country
This brief highlights the “networks, pipelines, the victims [and] the systems that enable human trafficking.” It identifies root causes of trafficking, citing research that states that traffickers seek out persons perceived to be vulnerable, which can include vulnerability that comes from historical trauma and cultural loss. There is also data presented that emphasizes the impact of trafficking in Native communities, stating that 40 percent of women who were victims of sex trafficking identifies as American Indian or Alaskan Native, despite not representing more than 10 percent of the general population in any of the cities or counties that were surveyed. The brief identifies a lack of resources for Indigenous women that have been victimized and recommends a number of steps that Native communities and urban areas can take to assist and support victims.

Human Trafficking Action Needed to Identify the Number of Native American Victims Receiving Federally-funded Services
This report focuses on federal efforts to address human trafficking. GAO studied the “extent to which (1) agencies collect and maintain data on investigations and prosecutions of human trafficking in Indian country or of Native Americans regardless of location and (2) federal grant programs are available to help address such trafficking, and how many Native American trafficking victims have recerived assistance through these programs.” While there is data available on the number of programs available, there is no known number of Native Americans that received services under these programs. The report also provides information on federal agencies that have begun to assess the prevalence of trafficking for a particular subgroup.

Urban Indian Health Institute: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls  
This report collects data from 71 urban cities in the US, identifying 506 cases. The report criticizes the lack of data collected and available, showing that out of the 5,712 cases of MMIWG reported in 2016, only 116 were logged in the Department of Justice database. UIHI identifies underreporting, racial misclassification, poor relationships between law enforcement and AI/AN communities, poor record-keeping protocols, institutional racism in the media, and a lack of substantive relationships between journalists and American Indian and Alaska native communities as reasons for the lack of quality data. UIHI also outlines the barriers they encountered in collecting data from states. For example, they were given $4,464.48 worth of invoices from agencies they had contacted.

Our Bodies, Our Stories
Our Bodies, Our Stories, is a collection of reports done by UIHI. The first covers sexual violence agains Native women in urban Seattle, Washington. UIHI administered a survey in the area that focused on sexual violence. Most of the participants were largely low-income and homeless women, however, which made the survey more specific to that community. Of the 148 interviewees, 139 had been raped or coerced at some point in their lives. 75% of these women “sometimes, often, or always felt sadness, anger, anxiety, or shame over the historical losses of Native people.” The report highlights the importance of this connection. The second reports on MMIWG in 71 urban cities across the country (see UIHI: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls). The third report will cover MMIWG in Alaska, it is in the process of being written.

International Advocacy to Help End Violence Against Native Women
This report from 2012 provides information and resources for the use of international advocacy in the fight to end violence against Indigenous women and girls. It provides information on legislation and governmental bodies at both the domestic and international level including the UN General Assembly, the UN Economic and Social Council Bodies, the Organization of American States, and the Inter-American Commission. It also provides key documents that are of importance at each level.

VAWA 2013’s Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction Five-Year Report
This report focuses on the implementation of SDVCJ, which gave tribes the authority to fight the high level of domestic violence against Native women after several studies showed staggering rates of violence against Native women on reservations. The report, released in 2018, highlights results that show positive changes that have come from SDVCJ implementation. Given the profiles of the 18 tribes that had implemented SDVCJ, the report found that 85 defendants accounted for 378 prior contacts with tribal police before the implementation of SDVCJ and 51% of defendants were sent to rehabilitation programs.
 
Missing and Murdered Native American Women Report This report was released by Washington State Patrol in 2019 in response to Substitute House Bill 2951, which ordered a study to (1) determine the scope of the problem, (2) identify barriers, and (3) create partnerships to increase reporting and investigation. The report outlines a number of steps that were taken to address the problems, including receiving community feedback and attempting to bring attention to under-utilized resources. The report tracks a number of conversations that were held with tribes where the attendees identified challenges (such as lack of communication with tribal communities, racial tension, jurisdiction issues, and mistrust) and offered suggestions to WSP (such as educating the community, training officers, providing a checklist on how to report, and the implementation of a truth and reconciliation process). The report cites SHP 2951 and 2SHB 1713 as steps in the right direction.

Office on Violence Against Women Tribal Consultation 2018: Annual Report