"It's like a free
range," Ms Brunner said. "Come and do what you want and they do come
here hunting. I call it hunting because we're not the targets we're the
bulls-eye."
Ms Brunner has witnessed
abuse at the hands of non-Indian men all her life. Her stepfather was one and
beat her mother when she was a child.
Unknown to her at the time,
her own daughters were raped and abused by a non-Indian known to the family
when they were 10 and eight years old.
Her eldest daughter Faith
said: "On the rides there I always made sure I sat in the front because I
didn't want anything happening to my sister, but it ended up happening
anyway," she said.
"He used to make me
kiss him and things, then at night he would come into the room. I don't really
remember much of that. I kind of blocked it out."
Two years ago Ms Brunner's
other daughter was attacked by strangers as she walked to a party.
They pulled her into their
SUV and raped her, she said.
They came prepared to carry
out the attack, bringing condoms and bandanas to disguise their faces. They
came to hunt, she said, and got away with it.
Ms Brunner has reported all
the attacks against herself and her daughters, but none of their attackers have
been brought to justice.
They are all non-Indians
and authorities have failed to pursue investigations to the point of
prosecution.
It is a familiar story on
reservations across America.
The new law comes into
effect in the US this month designed to close a loophole that allows non-Indian
men to attack women on Indian reservations and get away with it.
Reservations should be
refuges for Native Americans, but for decades their isolation and anomalies in
the law have also made them havens for sexual predators.
It's thought that a third
of Native American woman are raped in their lifetimes.
Some 86% of reported rapes
on reservations are carried out by non-Indian men, according to the US
Department of Justice.
"What's happened
through US Federal law and policy is they created lands of impunity where this
is like a playground for serial rapists, batterers, killers, whoever and our
children aren't protected at all," said Lisa Brunner, executive director
of Sacred Spirits First National Coalition.
Indian reservations have
their own tribal laws and courts, but they cannot prosecute non-Indians.
State and federal
authorities are generally too far away or do not have the resources to get
involved in cases of sexual violence.
So white men are free to
come onto reservations and attack Indian women and expect to get away with it.
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