<\/p>\n
A few years ago, while trying to help a sexual assault victim in St. Paul, Alaska, Kristie Traver, 46, found herself in an awful position.<\/p>\n
The victim needed a forensic exam \u2014 all the intrusive, time-consuming procedures that are necessary to build a case. But before any of that could happen, Traver had to scrape together the money for a plane ticket: The nearest community with those specialized services was a 3\u00bd hour flight away.<\/p>\n
Working on St. Paul Island, a 42-square-mile landmass in the Bering Sea, means that such inconveniences and logistical problems are part of Traver\u2019s job as division manager for victim services for the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island. A non-Native, Traver arrived in 2015 after working with victims of domestic violence in Nevada and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
The remoteness of St. Paul, with its windswept lowlands, sandy beaches and rocky cliffs, added urgency and complexity to cases in ways she had never encountered.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s three days if you can get them on the flight,\u201d said Traver, a tall, gregarious woman whose wavy brown hair frames her face and glasses. \u201cNo showering. No changing clothes. That\u2019s horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n
DNA evidence left on the human body is generally considered viable for 96 hours, after which it erodes. People wash their hands, eat and drink, brush their teeth, use the restroom. In this case, nearly a week had passed before the finances and flight schedules lined up \u2014 too late for the exam to be of much value for prosecution.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry,\u201d Traver told the victim. \u201cThere\u2019s no point in trying to collect evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI never want to have to say that to a victim again,\u201d Traver said.<\/p>\n
Now, she won\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n
Last August, St. Paul became the first community in Alaska to train volunteers to respond to victims and collect evidence. Known as SAFESTAR \u2014 for Sexual Assault Forensic Exam Support, Training, Access, and Resources \u2014 the program was developed by the Arizona-based Southwest Center for Law and Policy to assist Indigenous women. Living on rural tribal lands isolates victims from care, both geographically and culturally, and can often mean hours of commuting to reach medical facilities. Now, tribal communities in Arizona, Kansas, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Alaska and most recently, Massachusetts, can assist victims with local volunteers.<\/p>\n
The center pays for trainers and provides the response kits, but otherwise it\u2019s up to each community to decide how to staff and fund SAFESTAR. Many communities rely entirely on volunteers, often counselors, advocates and teachers. They learn about trauma and anatomy, how to photograph wounds and bruises, and how to collect forensic evidence.<\/p>\n
Indigenous women experience twice the national average for sexual assault. St. Paul officials believe rates there are even higher, estimating that most women in the community are exposed to sexual violence during their lifetime. Additionally, some women don\u2019t contact police, because speaking up can mean getting a loved one in trouble, challenging a powerful family, or facing an onslaught of victim blaming and shaming. Against this wave of consequences, silence feels safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil we can break that silence, it will continue,\u201d said Shirley Rice, 60, a trained SAFESTAR volunteer and lead advocate for tribal victim services for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation in Mayetta, Kansas.<\/p>\n
Each survivor has her own needs, and Rice, a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, offers comfort that\u2019s seldom seen in clinical settings. The burning of sage or cedar, a walk to a nearby creek to let the water run over sacred tobacco \u2014 these forms of cleansing and healing can help put victims at ease as they talk. For many women, the moral support SAFESTAR provides is as important, if not more so, than establishing a solid forensic case.<\/p>\n
The organization that trained Rice, the Southwest Center for Law and Policy, provides volunteers with 40 hours of training and supplies mobile rape kits \u2014 everything needed to provide basic first aid, offer emotional support and referrals, and collect forensic evidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ability to process sexual assault cases in rural Alaska has always been complicated by not having as many resources available for the collection of evidence,\u201d said John Skidmore, criminal division director for the State of Alaska Department of Law. \u201cAnything that is done to improve that is a step in the right direction.\u201d The state, the St. Paul tribal governments and SAFESTAR volunteers work together to make sure the evidence collected by the program is admissible in court.<\/p>\n
SAFESTAR can\u2019t do everything, but Traver sees the program\u2019s power for Indigenous women. \u201cVictims won\u2019t have to wait. They won\u2019t have it looming over them and adding to their trauma,\u201d Traver said. \u201cI\u2019m excited to be able to say, \u2018You don\u2019t have to go all the way out there. We can just get it done right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Jill Burke is an Alaska-based freelance journalist who lives in Anchorage. This article was first published on hcn.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new approach empowers Natives in remote lands<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[561,524],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-99975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-native-american","tag-sexual-assault"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99975"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=99975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}