Indigenous Support Initiatives

Programs run by Native American and Alaska Native women are vital in ensuring the protection and long-term support of Indigenous women who have experienced sexual violence. However, lack of funding is a widespread problem. For example, the Emmonak Women's Shelter in the Lower Yukon Delta of Alaska is a long-standing shelter and the only Alaska-Native-run provider in a village setting. In 2005, the state of Alaska cut its funding for the shelter.

In 2005, the organization South Dakota Coalition against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault contributed to the founding of Pretty Bird Woman House, a domestic violence programme on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The program, which is named after Ivy Archambault (Pretty Bird Woman), a Standing Rock woman who was raped and murdered in 2001, does not yet have a shelter facility or funding for direct services for its clients, but helps women to access services off the Reservation.

An important achievement in the provision of culturally appropriate support services to Native American and Alaska Native women has been the formation of 16 tribal coalitions working against domestic and sexual violence across the USA: Alaska Native Women's Coalition; American Indians Against Abuse; Arizona Native American Coalition Against Family Violence; Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women; Community Resource Alliance; Great Basin Native Women's Coalition Against Domestic Violence; Indian Country Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault; Kene Mewu Family Healing Center, Inc.; Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition; Niwhongwh xw E:na:wh Stop the Violence Coalition; Oklahoma Native American Domestic Violence Coalition; Sicangu Coalition Against Sexual Violence; Southwest Indigenous Women's Coalition; Strong Hearted Women's Coalition; We, Asdzani Coalition; Yupik Women's Coalition.