sebastienne

Dear Flist,

Non-denominational seasonal greetings from the

pridehouse!

We've had a great solstice party, with midnight embers and a bedecked leek - hope that the family/time off work/presents are making you as happy as we are here.

As a solstice/hannukah/christmas/etc gift for you (yes, you!), for anyone whose address I don't have or for whom I couldn't find anything that suited - as well as for those who have already received presents or are soon to get them - I've given $100 (~£50) to

Pretty Bird Woman House

In 2004, Jackie Brown Otter founded Pretty Bird Woman House, a women's shelter at the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. The shelter is named after Brown Otter's sister, who was kidnapped, raped and beaten to death in 2001.

According to Amnesty Intn'l report,

High levels of sexual violence on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation take place in a context of high rates of poverty and crime... The unemployment rate on the Reservation is 71 per cent. Crime rates on the Reservation often exceed those of its surrounding areas. According to FBI figures, in 2005 South Dakota had the fourth highest rate of "forcible rapes" of women of any US state.

As a special bonus to the Lakota Sioux Reservation, there are sufficient desensitization to crime and confusion over Tribal/Non-Tribal jurisdiction at Standing Rock to create rape tourism. Says Andrea Smith, an Assistant Professor of Native Studies at the University of Michigan,

[N]on-Native perpetrators often seek out a reservation place because they know they can inflict violence without much happening to them.

Against these odds, Pretty Bird Woman House is staffed by three people-- a nurse, a volunteer, and a part-time employee-- and from January to October of this year, they managed to:

-- answer 397 crisis calls
-- give emergency shelter to 188 women and 132 children
-- help 23 women obtain restraining orders, 10 get divorces, and 16 get medical assistance
-- provide court advocacy support for 28 women
-- conduct community education programs for 360 women.

A few weeks ago, PBWH's phone lines were cut, the office was ransacked, and the building was burnt down.

Everyone was away from the house at the time, but all possessions were lost, and-- because PBWH's grant from the South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic Violence is predicated on its ability to shelter women-- its funding is also lost. Now everybody's trying to pick up the pieces.

Click here for the full story..

Because not everywhere (not anywhere?) in the world is as great as the

pridehouse.

With love,