Horrid Congressman Threatens Tribal Council With Violence at Hearing for Abused Women Services
LatestIf you’re at all like North Dakota Congressman Kevin Cramer, you’ll know that the best way to comport yourself in a hearing at which a deeply disenfranchised population is attempting to redress the systematic injustices it has endured for centuries — with a focus on the disproportionate rate of murder and sexual assault its female population faces — is to belligerently ignore all of the presenter’s comments, publicly threaten her people with violence, and, if you reduce a woman in attendance to tears with your vitriolic ignorance, it’s best to seize her and embrace her against her will. You know! Just crushin’ some Congressman business, nothing to see here.
If you’re not like North Dakota Congressman Kevin Cramer (which is to say you are in possession of at least a minute amount of social grace and the faintest glimmer of a soul), you’ll most likely be horrified by his behavior. The Congressman in question attended a state coalition membership meeting on March 26 with the objective of listening to program directors from North Dakota voice the “concerns, needs, and other issues that are affecting [their] programs.” One of the program directors was Melissa Merrick, a Native American woman who directs the Spirit Lake Victim Assistance and serves on three other coalitions that provide aid and counseling to Native American victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. There to speak about the need to protect the Tribal Sexual Assault Services Program, she was aware that Congressman Cramer did not agree with the constitutionality of provisions in the recently-renewed Violence Against Women Act that address the concerns of Native women.
Some background: 34% of American Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped in their lifetimes (this is twice the national average for non-Native women). 39% will be victim of domestic violence, and the rate of murder for Native women is ten times the national average. Before the addition of the new provisions to VAWA, tribal courts lacked the jurisdiction to prosecute non-Native men — even when these men had committed crimes on tribal land — essentially allowing non-Native men to sexually assault Native women with impunity. The tribal provisions give tribal courts jurisdiction over cases involving domestic violence, dating violence, and violations of protection orders — all within reservation boundaries.