The title is" Almost Every Native American Woman Reported Rape Or Coercion In A Survey That Was Hidden For Years."
Abigail Echo-Hawk began her new job as director of the Urban Indian Health Institute in 2016 in the same way many other people begin new gigs — by poking around her new office, according to a Seattle Times exclusive. That's how she found a copy of the 2010 survey, which questioned 148 women who identified as American Indian and/or Alaska Native about their experience with sexual violence, buried among other files in the very bottom drawer of a filing cabinet tucked into the corner of her office. Despite the fact that the survey revealed important findings about both the rate of sexual violence against Native women and its impact, the Urban Indian Health Institute hid it for years.
Echo-Hawk told the Seattle Times that leaders at the institute had initially opted not to publish the survey's results because they feared they would promote negative characterizations of the Native community. But Echo-Hawk felt it was important to make the survey findings public and so, for two years, she worked with the CDC on interpreting and releasing the data in a report called Our Bodies, Our Stories: Sexual Violence Among Native Women In Seattle, WA.
The report found that a staggering 94 percent of the Native women surveyed had been raped or coerced into sex at least once in their lives. What's more, 42 percent of those who had been raped or coerced reported having attempted suicide. And more than half of the women surveyed reported being homeless at the time of the interviews.
While I just found this and lack time to do it justice, I'd like this to be part of the dialogue. Peace.