Anchorage Daily News

Alaska Native women hurt by physical and sexual violence and advocates for them lobbed question after question at a panel in Anchorage on Wednesday that included some of the state's top law enforcement officials.

They asked tough questions about inadequacies in the system that is supposed to respond to the violence, and members of the panel on rural justice admitted they didn't always have good answers. The three-day conference on the troubling issue of violence against Alaska Native women ended Wednesday.

A separate panel of four women who had been raped or physically abused spoke out about their own gut-wrenching experiences and how they were shaped by what they went through. One who talked was U.S. House candidate Diane Benson.

She told the crowd in the Hilton Anchorage ballroom that she was repeatedly sexually abused in Alaska foster care, that when she was a young teenager and went to the police, a Ketchikan officer not only didn't pursue charges but said he wanted to get in on it, and that she was raped three times by age 20. She didn't even try to report those, she said.

The Daily News usually does not identify victims of sex crimes, but the women on the panel said the paper could use their names. They did not want to be quiet or hidden.

Benson, a Democrat who also ran against U.S. Rep. Don Young two years ago, said she's talked publicly about her experiences for a dozen years at victim conferences around the country, though the rapes might be news to people in Alaska. It's not the kind of thing she'd bring up as a campaign strategy, she said. She talks about the worst times of her life to offer hope to other women, she said.

"If I can be a person who can get out there and do what I do, after this violent, neglectful and abusive kind of history and still demand my dignity, find my self-respect, after all of it, so can somebody else," Benson said.

Lisa Frank, a board member of the Alaska Native Women's Coalition who lives in Arctic Village, said she was raped 12 years ago Outside and was able to come home to heal. But think of all those assaulted by someone in their village, who may have to see the person who hurt them every day, she said.

DESPAIR BEYOND WORDS

These kinds of conferences are not new and yet nothing seems to change, Anna May Ferguson of Togiak said during the rural justice panel.

"You name it. We talk about it, for years and years," she told the members of Alaska Rural Justice and Law Enforcement Commission.

The commission members on the panel included U.S. Attorney Nelson Cohen, state Attorney General Talis Colberg, and Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.

Everyone knows the truth of the problems, Ferguson said. Suicides and alcoholism and despair beyond words. "We know what we have been through," she said.

What is the state doing to get money to the villages and the tribes, to let them take a turn at solving the problems?

Colberg said there's been debate over the role of village public safety officers and whether they should come from the community, so they truly know it, or outside of it, so they don't feel torn if a family member gets into trouble.

This year, state lawmakers led by Sen. Donny Olson, D-Nome, approved more money for village public safety officers, who serve as first responders for all kinds of crises even though they aren't allowed to be armed, Colberg said. They'll be paid more, and there will be more of them. That should help with turnover, which is terribly high.

Still, Colberg said later that many matters pertaining to tribal authority remain unsettled in Alaska. Court cases are pending that involve jurisdiction over child custody cases. While some tribal courts can handle some juvenile matters, overall criminal authority still rests with the state, he said.

MORE MONEY, MORE COMPASSION

Audience members stood one after the other to pepper the panel with questions.

Why has government funding for substance abuse treatment dropped when everyone knows that's a big need? Why did the prior administration cut out rehabilitation in prisons? Isn't that required by the state Constitution?

Why are victims treated poorly by certain prosecutors and law enforcement officers? Shouldn't officers be required to use the specially trained Sexual Assault Response Teams whenever possible?

As to the last question, the answer for troopers is definitely yes, Monegan said. The teams help gather evidence, identify suspects and begin the healing process for victims, Monegan said.

If any trooper is rude to or insensitive with a victim, he said he wants to know about it.

Likewise, said Rick Svobodny, deputy attorney general over the criminal division for the state Department of Law.

The conference, called "Building Momentum," was put on by the Alaska Native Justice Center with funding from the U.S. Justice Department, Office on Violence Against Women.

"We're coming together and we're talking," said Denise Morris, president of the Alaska Native Justice Center.

Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.

Victims of abuse

A 2007 study led by the UAA Justice Center found:

• 989 sexual assault or child sex abuse reports to Alaska State Troopers in 2003 and 2004.

• 61 percent of the victims were Alaska Natives, most of them women. Alaska Natives make up about 13 percent of the state's population.

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