Letters to the Editor

Letter: Time for change

Michelle Theriault Boots’ recent article on silence in Alaska villages over rape, incest and abuse should warrant several follow-ups. It’s a disservice to us all to allow felonies to go unreported, underreported, ignored and dismissed.

Troy Eid, former U.S. Attorney and chairman of a recent commission investigating this epidemic, recently got front-page ADN attention with his statement, “We went to villages where every woman told us they had been raped. Every single woman.”

When will this stop? Evidently not now. It’s been going on for decades and probably longer. Mothers telling their daughters to suck it up, it happened to the mothers also. That it will be the child’s fault if Dad (uncle, brother, cousin, etc.) goes to prison.

The corporations can stop this. Possibly only the CEOs and boards of the 13 regional Native corporations can do it, along with the village corporations. They can make it clear that there will be no more dividends, no more pay raises, and every year it continues with reduction in pay and benefits until the problem is ended. They have plenty of resources, if they do that, and it is up to them.

— Linda Sharp

Anchorage

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