Congress is considering different visions for a renewed Violence Against Women Act.
The 1994 law was intended to address concerns about violent crime against women, and included provisions that enhanced sentencing for repeat sex offenders, money to pursue prosecutions, and increased protection for victims of domestic and sexual abuse, among others.
Since then, the law has been reauthorized three times, most recently in 2013. But it needs a new reauthorization, and some tribal advocates are worried about a provision being considered in the U.S. Senate.
It would remove a measure enacted in 2013, which supporters say closed a loophole in which non-Native men could not be prosecuted for crimes committed against Native women on tribal land.
Elizabeth Carr, senior Native Affairs adviser at the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center in Billings, Montana, joined the Show to talk about the situation in which a large number of Indigenous women have found themselves — when they are the victims of abuse at the hands of non-Native men.
