What is Domestic violence? It is a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors that include physical, sexual, verbal and psychological attacks, as well as economic coercion, that adults or adolescents use against their intimate partners.
These learned behaviors have been intensified by acts of colonization and the imposition of hierarchy and foreign belief systems on Native peoples. These unnatural learned behaviors of power and control includes: using male privilege, isolation, intimidation, emotional abuse, minimizing, lying and blaming, sexual abuse, using children, economic abuse, coercion and threats, cultural abuse, ritual abuse and physical abuse.
We know that more than 4 in 5 American Indian and Alaska Native women (84.3%) and men (81.6%) have experienced violence in their lifetime. In that, 56% of AI/AN women and 43.2% of AI/AN men have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner. At the same time, Native youth are exposed to violence in different sectors of their lives. In addition, our 2SLGBTQ+ relatives and disabled relatives also fall victim to domestic violence.
